


My Crown is Called Content

by TourmalineGreen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Rey is a college student, The Prince and Me AU, ben is a royal pain in the ass, positively gratuitous amounts of shakespeare, tags to be amended as chapters go up, this is not a serious fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-05-13 07:14:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19246381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen/pseuds/TourmalineGreen
Summary: When Crown Prince Benjamin Charles Lando Bail Organa, the heir to the throne, wasn’t racing his cars up narrow mountain roads, he was getting photographed with a model, or heiress, or actress, or some other beautiful woman who would inevitably be forgotten within a week’s time. Or he was at a nightclub, grinding in the corner with one or more of the aforementioned beautiful women. Or any number of other ridiculous escapades which had been mildly scandalous, boys-will-be-boys nonsense when he’d been seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old.At thirty-one, it wasn’t amusing anymore, but he didn’t know how to stop. And moreover, he didn’t seem to want to.---A prince, outrunning his reputation. A student, chasing her dreams. What happens when an unstoppable hot mess meets an immovable object who refuses to be objectified?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so here's a rough Reylo take on the movie The Prince And Me. For Becca, and the bucket. Enjoy!

 

 

My crown is in my heart, not on my head;

Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,

Nor to be seen: My crown is called content:

A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

_Henry VI, part three | Act 3 Scene 1_

 

* * *

 

People, Rey Nieman had learned, were unstable variables. Numbers never lied.

While people could be… messy, and inconsistent, and unreliable, so long as she was careful, data always told the truth.

That truth had been what had drawn Rey to engineering in the first place—a natural aptitude for math, combined with the invigoration and pride that swelled when she’d unpuzzled a challenging equation. Math was just as beautiful as art or music, although her roommate and best friend, Rose Tico, would heartily disagree.

“How in the world are your notes always so _tidy?_ ” Rose asked, setting down her pile of books and notes on the dining table where Rey was currently camped out. “And why are you looking at notes? Classes don’t start for another four days.”

“Welcome back to you too,” Rey replied, looking up at her friend, stretching her cramped spine. “I’m revising because I’ve only just _now_ finalized my course schedule, and I’m convinced I’m going to muck this semester up before I’ve even started.”

“You won’t,” Rose assured her. “You’ll get straight-As, put us all to shame, and go to zero parties just like last semester, you overachiever.”

Rey grinned. “I promised you that I’d go to three parties, and I intend to make good on that promise. I get to choose the parties.”

“Point of clarification, but that was a bet you lost, but yes, three parties. At least three.”

Rey put her hand over her heart. “You have my word.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rose said with a laugh, wandering into their little kitchen. “And my axe. We need to get groceries.”

“I have a bit I can chip in if you want to go tomorrow,” Rey replied. “I start back up at Kanata’s tomorrow night, so I should have my first paycheck soon.”

“You’re good, don’t worry about it.”

Rey closed her notebook from last semester’s physics course and frowned. “I want to pay my part, you don’t need to—”

“And you _will,”_ Rose said as she stood back up and closed the fridge door. “I’m not pressed about it. It’ll all even out in the wash.”

“I’ll do your laundry, then,” Rey said, “as payment.”

Rose laughed. “That’s _not_ what I mean… Rey, how long have we been friends? I know how much it means to you, paying your own way, taking care of yourself—being self-sufficient. But you’re practically my sister, and if I can’t spot you groceries this week, then who the hell can? You are literally the _only_ reason I passed math last term.”

“You would’ve figured it out,” Rey said, somewhat feebly. Rose was no slouch in the academics department, not in the slightest.

“Yeah, _if_ I hadn’t been distracted by a certain person who shall remain nameless last term,” Rose said, with a knowing smile.

Rey rolled her eyes. Rose and her boyfriend Finn were the epitome of relationship goals. He was absolutely devoted to her, steady and dependable, and her parents loved him. He also happened to be working as a security guard at the moment, which meant that his shifts were often announced week by week, and usually he was given overnights. But, he and Rose still made time to see each other, and he had his own place, which meant that whatever it was the two of them got up to in their spare time wasn’t something Rey had to hear through the somewhat thin walls of their apartment.

Rose grabbed her purse. “Come on, you need to eat, and I need a drink.”

“I really need to—”

“ _Yes, Rose, that’s an excellent idea, the very best idea you’ve ever had, because you’re a genius.”_ Rose said, her put-on, overemphasized British accent eliciting peals of laughter from Rey.

“Alright, alright.” Rey stacked up her notes and slid them to the side of the table, pushing back the chair and getting to her feet. “It’s four-something on a Wednesday, right before start of term. Let’s go drink until we’re brilliant.”

* * *

“So what was it that kept them from finalizing your schedule for so long?” Rose, carefully carrying her pint glass, walked beside Rey as they scouted Kanata’s for an empty table. “That’s crazy late.”

“Apparently, there was a scheduling conflict, a one-credit lab that the system kept trying to double-book me for,” Rey replied.

“Weird.”

They sat down at one of the round, four-person tables, which had the look of being very hastily wiped clean with a damp rag. The bowl of snacks in the center of the table was nearly empty. Beside them, a group of five guys in blue and white _University of D’Qar_ hoodies had the makings of a rowdy table, if they got a few more drinks into them, which they were likely to do—but that was Rey thinking like a waitress. Tonight, she wasn’t going to think about her next shift at all.

“I had to go in and get them to fix it manually,” Rey said, as Rose took a drink of her lager. “ _And_ I’ve got a required course this term which I had to fit in as well.”

“What are you taking?

“The only humanities course that fit was Shakespeare.” Rey made a face.

Rose laughed. “What’s so terrible about Shakespeare?”

“Reading jumbled-up words by a dead, white, Englishman isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

“I’m sure it won’t be awful,” Rose said. “You might enjoy it.”

Rey made a face, and took a drink from her own glass; Rose grinned, just as a cheer rose up from the bro-cluster table. The two women glanced at the commotion, and Rey saw her coworker, Tallie, was delivering a round of shots. She gave Tallie a sympathetic wave, and the blonde waved back with a half-smile and a roll of her eyes.

“...last semester of our last year,” Rose was saying, as the noise around them died back down. “I still have two more letters of recommendation to get for the vet program—did you get yours?”

“I still need one,” Rey said. “Professor Ackbar went on a health sabbatical, and I’m not going to press him if he’s unwell.”

“Maybe one of your profs this term?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Rey sighed, and swiped her thumb across the condensation-covered logo emblazoned on the glass. Kanata’s wasn’t likely to spring for glasses with their logo on it, such as it was; this was for a local brewery instead. “Sometimes I just wish I could skip this whole semester, just skip ahead to the part where my grad school application is back and the scholarship has been decided and I actually know what to plan for, because I feel like—”

“You’re going to get it—”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence.” Rey took another drink, and watched as Rose hooked her finger on the edge of the bowl of snacks, pulling it closer and rifling through for something that wasn’t broken pretzel bits. “I’m sorry, I feel like I just need to shut up about my life. I’m being a selfish friend.”

“No, you’re not. You’re just anxious,” Rose said. “You’ve prepared, you’re an ideal candidate, and I’m sure not even Shakespeare will hold you back from thoroughly kicking grad school’s ass. I’m going to miss you, you know. When you’re off, travelling the world.”

Rey set her drink down on the table and gave Rose a smile. Rose was a shoe-in for the veterinary program she’d applied to; she’d been raised by a pair of vets, spent her summers following her parents as they went to house calls and farm well-checks and tended the county fair animals. And the program to which she’d applied was on the other side of the country, but it was the best, and Rose deserved to be there. Rey didn’t know anyone who was as good with animals, as unflappable and kind and thorough as Rose was. If they both were accepted, Rey would be staying here, at University of D’Qar, pursuing one of the coveted spots in the graduate-level _Clean and Renewable Energy Engineering_ program.

“I’m going to miss you, too,” Rey said. Then she took another drink, because the thought of the future—even the most ideal future—meant being away from her best friend, and that was way too depressing for what was supposed to be a fun night of drinking.

“Here,” Tallie said, appearing between them and swapping out the old basket of snacks for a fresh one. “I put in extra rye chips, your favorite, don’t tell Snap, alright?”

Rey and Rose grinned. “Thanks, Tallie.”

Rye chips were the most polarizing of snacks in the mix; Rey was firmly on Team Rye, while their manager, Snap, kept trying to throw them out for some reason. It was a running joke.

“Saw your name on the shift schedule that he posted,” Tallie continued, putting the empty snack basket on her tray and holding it to her side, on her hip, as she looked down at them. “It’ll be good to have you back.”

“Thanks,” Rey said.

Tallie was a sweetheart, with her hipster-aesthetic and ever-present two-bun look, but she was a double major in history and business, and Rey was convinced she was going to run at least twelve successful nonprofits before the age of thirty while probably running for office at some point. And, she was a wonderful human being, just for the extra rye crisps. Tallie waved them off as the Fellowship of the Bros behind them rose up in a cheer once more, and Rey turned her attention back to the beer and snacks.

“No more shop talk,” Rey said, decisively. “Let’s talk about something else. _Anything_ else.”

Rose nodded. “Good plan. So... did I tell you what happened with Finn and his schedule?”

* * *

 . . .

* * *

For such a small country, Alderaan seemed to have more than its fair share of paparazzi. It wasn’t a coincidence. So long as there was a dramatic subject to pursue and a story to sell, the cameras would follow. So long as the tabloids were interested in the goings-on of the country’s most notable—or notorious—residents, there would be a market for it. And, thankfully for the paparazzi, there was a perpetually-dramatic subject there who was always good for a photograph.

When Crown Prince Benjamin Charles Lando Bail Organa, the heir to the throne, wasn’t racing his cars up narrow mountain roads, he was getting photographed with a model, or heiress, or actress, or some other beautiful woman who would inevitably be forgotten within a week’s time. Or he was at a nightclub, grinding in the corner with one or more of the aforementioned beautiful women. Or any number of other ridiculous escapades which had been mildly scandalous, boys-will-be-boys nonsense when he’d been seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old.

At thirty-one, it wasn’t amusing anymore, but he didn’t know how to stop. And moreover, he didn’t seem to want to.

It was his photograph that Queen Leia studied one bright Thursday morning, taking breakfast in her private morning salon, as she had for the entirety of her 49-year-reign. This coming year would mark 50 years as Queen of Alderaan. After her wartime ascent to the throne at just nineteen, Queen Leia has done her duty, championed her people’s cause, held the tiny nation together, and never once shirked her burdens. Sure, she might have lightly adjusted expectations, here and there, but they loved her, and she loved them.

Marriage to a commoner, and a professional race car driver, at that, had been somewhat controversial, and bearing just one heir, and no spares, had been difficult and filled with private heartbreak on top of the public expectation. She had tried to do everything right. And if not perfectly, she had tried to raise her son in love. Now, however, the queen had grown tired of waiting for her son to grow up. Sure, everything had fallen to his shoulders, but her son had broad shoulders, and she knew that, when he put his mind to something, he achieved it.

Where was his mind now, she wondered? What was he thinking?

“The crown prince to see you, your majesty.”

“Send him in,” Leia said, looking up at her trusted head-of-staff. “Thank you, Threepio.”

The slim man gave a little formal bow, and turned, but before he could even head out the door, her son sidestepped him, arriving in the quiet of the salon with a stomp of his heavy boots and the clatter as he tossed his motorcycle helmet onto the nearby floral settee.

“ _Ben_ ,” Leia began.

Her son simply rolled his eyes. “ _What_.”

The crown prince was, perhaps, one of two men on the planet who had the balls to address the Queen of Alderaan in such a familiar and disrespectful fashion. And Ben was the only one of those two who would flop down on one of the chairs opposite the fire, propping up his muddy boots and draping his long-limbed frame with the slack disinterest of a boy in a grown man’s body.

In another century, one might have called the pose dissipated. Today, Leia simply thought he looked… tired.

“This,” the queen said. She held up the first of the tabloids, with the half-page photo of her son in the same outfit as he was currently wearing—black jeans, black motorcycle boots, a cherry-red concert t-shirt with some six-breasted glowing alien dancing girl on the front, and a black leather jacket. His dark brown hair was just as shaggy and overlong, but, mercifully, someone had alerted him to the presence of the woman’s lipstick on his face that was there in the photo. It was wiped clean now as he sat before his mother’s disapproving glare, but nothing was going to get rid of the other signs of exhaustion on his face, save for time, and sleep. The dark circles, the tiredness, the stubble coming in on his jaw.

Ben met his mother’s glare, and held it. Finally, his eyes darted over to the photo on the magazine. Then, and only then, did his sullen expression break.

Into a smile.

“Ah. Cassandra. Wonderful mouth on her.”

“ _Benjamin_.”

“I’ll have to give her a call some time.”

“Benjamin, that’s _enough_.”

The smile fell from his face. Slowly, he sat up, hunched over, his forearms on his knees as he sat on the edge of the settee. Leia glanced down, feeling a tug in her heart at the way his feet overlapped a little, toes pointed together just the way they had since he’d been small.

He’d never been small, not for his age. But he’d been a boy, once. Kind and sweet and trusting. So eager to please. The guilty thought pierced her— _where the hell did we go wrong?_

“Cassandra, is it?” Leia said, focusing her attention back on her son’s face. “She _definitely_ has the makings of a future queen. I’m so proud of you. You know that? Every time one of these garbage rags picks up on your nighttime adventures, I sit in front of parliament and think, I’m so grateful that the future of my homeland is entrusted to—”

“Alright, you’ve made your point.” Ben cut across her, voice steady, even as his hands shook; he looked down at them, forcing them to be still. “I just... “

“You just need to _grow up_.”

Ben said nothing. Leia took a breath, and set the tabloid back down. There were three more beneath it, with different angles of the same sordid scene.

“Benjamin, one day, you will be the fifty-first ruler of the longest continuous monarchy in the history of the world—”

“Yes, I am _aware_ , mother—”

“It’s a monarchy which still requires the participation of a _monarch_ in the workings and decisions of the government, so if I am less than amused at your behavior, you can at least understand why.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Leia stood; her son looked up.

It could not escape his notice that his mother was dressed and ready for the day at seven in the morning, while he was still stinking of cigarettes and booze from the night before. Nothing escaped her notice, as Ben was well aware.

“I’ve been _trying_ to keep you involved. I’ve been asking, begging you to grow the hell up and make something of yourself, other than becoming a national embarrassment.”

At this, he stiffened. “I already know what you and everyone thinks of me. I don’t need the reminder. Not today.”

“Then _when’s_ it going to change?” Leia countered. “When are you going to—”

“I’ll leave, then, if I’m such a goddamn embarrassment to you,” Ben said, standing up abruptly. “I’ll go.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t really give a shit what you want.”

Leia looked up at him, shock and hurt in her eyes; for all that he stood a head taller than her, he seemed, in that moment, to be even more boyish and pitiful. His voice was resolute, but his eyes… his eyes were wounded. There was history here. Old hurts, never fully healed. He looked sulky, hurt, wounded, and so tightly wound she feared he might crack and splinter and reveal himself to be made of something other than flesh. And yet, flesh alone could bruise; he wore deep bruises beneath his eyes. Her mother's instinct longed to gentle him. 

As a queen, however... 

“I’m going, whether you like it or not.”

And at that, Benjamin Organa, the Crown Prince of Alderaan, turned on his heel, and left.

As she watched her son leave, the queen felt her legs tremble. She gripped the back of her chair, and forced herself not to falter.

 _Solo men,_ she thought. _So like his father. A pair of headstrong idiots, both of them. I just wish I could make this one understand… before it’s too late._

But her son’s retreating footsteps seemed to be the only answer the queen was likely to recieve.


	2. Chapter 2

“Where are you planning to go, sir?” 

“The fuck away from here,” Ben replied. He was grabbing clothes, shoving them into his bag without really looking. Not a great plan, but then again, he’d never really been one for planning. He could still hear his mother’s words ringing in his ears. Despite pretending not to give a shit anymore, he did. And her judgement hurt. It hurt because it was true. He'd been playing the fool for years, and the role had become stale. 

_ Never finish anything… I ask for help, and you send me away. Uncle Luke couldn’t even look at me without pity in his eyes… and that night… _

“I’m going to finish my degree,” Ben said. 

The idea came out of nowhere; it had arrived, fully-formed, in his thoughts, a guillotine response, cutting off the dark memories. A second later, when the meaning of the words hit him, he felt a rush of amusement at them; The reactionary impulse that contrasted sharply with the hedonistic threesome he’d had the night before. Cassandra and… what was the other woman’s name? She hadn’t spoken English, or any of the other languages in which Ben was fluent, but she’d smiled and nodded and reached for his cock all the same, so he supposed he wasn’t likely to be hearing from any lawyers. 

But the degree… He’d started a history degree, years ago, but had dropped out before he'd finished it. Pure nepotism had gotten him into the university when his own grades had failed, but Ben knew that, when he applied himself, he had potential to succeed. Like so many other things he’d never finished, the degree gnawed at him. He’d been only slightly more idealistic at twenty-one than he was now, at thirty— _ Christ,  _ he thought;  _ Where did the time go? _

Then again… colleges were, by all accounts, excellent places for hedonistic threesomes. Deflect his mother’s criticism and duck away from his weighty obligations, and find some college girls in the process? He smirked, already feeling more in-control of the situation. Fuck that idiot boy who had been his past self. He couldn’t go back and change the past. It was better to fulfill someone’s expectations, and keep being the Party Prince. What was the point in trying anything else?

“You’re… what?” His bodyguard, Mitaka, wasn’t usually one to betray an excess of emotion, but for once, the man sounded surprised.

“University,” Ben said, sitting down on the edge of his bed as he fumbled his phone from his jeans pocket—and the fancy smartphone in his hand chirped in acknowledgment of his spoken request. 

_ “A University is an institution of higher learning, where—” _

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Ben snapped, prodding at the button on the front as his robotic-voiced smartphone stopped speaking, then looking back up at Mitaka. “Did you hear back about the car?”

Ben had left his fancy car outside of the nightclub last night; he’d been hoping to hear word that it had been recovered and brought back to the palace, but before Mitaka could even open his mouth to give news of it, the phone interrupted them both.

_ “The University of D’Qar is a private research university located in D’Qar, California. It’s main campus covers one thousand, two hundred and—” _

“Shut  _ up!” _ Ben growled at the phone, resisting the urge to throw it across the room. Then, to Mitaka: “University of D’Qar. Why not. I need a transfer, admissions… fucking transcripts, or whatever. Make it happen.”

“I… yes, your royal highness…” Mitaka seemed uncertain. “I’ll… start right on that.”

* * *

“ _ Analytical Methods in Civil Engineering, Sustainable Urban Development, Environmental Soil Mechanics _ , a one-credit physics lab, and…  _ Shakespeare _ ?” Tallie looked up from Rey’s course schedule. “One of these things is not like the other. Big fan of his work?”

Rey rolled her eyes, and pulled out a cling-film-wrapped ham from the depths of the massive fridge, looking down until she found the date sticker on it. “Required humanities credit. The very last one I have to take, and believe me, I’m even less enthused than you think.”

“You’ll be fine,” Tallie said, as she put the piece of paper back down on the clean metal counter behind her, and picked up the clipboard. “If that one isn’t stickered, it has to go.”

“Damn it,” Rey mutterd, chucking the questionable ham into the trash. “If Poe would spend two seconds  _ not  _ hitting on everyone at the bar, maybe we wouldn’t have to—”

“It’s college, you’re supposed to hit on everyone.” Tallie grinned. 

Rey learned back and scanned out through the kitchen doorway to see if anyone had come into the place in the last five minutes. Snap was working tonight as well, and technically speaking, one of them really ought to be out helping, but it had been slow. It wasn’t slow any longer. 

“You’re supposed to study and get a degree,” Rey countered, digging out what purported to be a turkey breast, still contained within the shrink-wrap packaging. There really wasn’t much of a demand for their sandwiches, and Rey was semi-convinced that Snap only kept them on the menu to have an excuse to call Kanata’s a pub and not just a full-on bar, but, whatever. 

“Well, yeah,” Tallie said, making the mark on her clipboard, then adjusting her little white apron so it sat at just the right spot over her chest to show off the low neckline of her t-shirt. “But what’s life without a few extracurriculars?”

“No thank you,” Rey said lightly. “College boys are worthless. The kind of guys I might consider dating are, most likely, as focused and busy as I am, ergo, no time for dating.”

“You just used  _ ergo  _ in a sentence,” Tallie said, doodling a little turkey in the corner of the paper. “ _ Ergo _ , you could find a hot, smart boy, who gets super turned on when you talk nerdy to him, and then you two could focus on each other, then,  _ ergo _ , you’d have something other than homework to do on a Saturday night.”

_ “Tallie…”  _ Rey laughed. 

“Surely you could find some kind of  _ ergonomic  _ solution to your problem. ‘Oh yes, I want you to sustainably plough my fields,’” Tallie said, thrusting her hips. “Oh baby, tell me more about solar arrays…”

Rey scoffed at this ridiculous and patently untrue caricature; she reached for the clipboard to make a note of the expiration date on the deli meat, but Tallie pulled it just out of her grasp. 

“It’s your last semester of your senior year,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye and a flutter to her long, dangling, feather earrings as she moved. “Live a little. You’ll still graduate with honors if you get laid.  _ Summa cum loudly _ .”

Before Rey could reply, Snap poked his head around the doorway, looking between the two of them. “Can we put a pin in… whatever this is, ladies? I need someone at the tap, please.”

Tallie gave her boss a little half-salute, and Rey reached for the clipboard again. Yet again, Tallie pulled it just away from Rey’s grasp.

“I’ll finish cleaning out the fridge, if you’ll take the honor of waiting on Mr. Tall, Dark, and Entitled at the bar. If he doesn’t at least ask for your number, I’ll be shocked.” 

Tallie glanced out the doorway and Rey followed her co-worker’s gaze. Sure enough, there was a tall, dark-haired man waiting at the bar. Rey rolled her eyes again, and handed Tallie the turkey. 

“Suit yourself. But I am not hitting on him—or anyone.”

“Boring,” Tallie called out after her, voice sing-song and teasing. 

“And I am not giving  _ anyone  _ my number!”

* * *

Ben had arrived in the United States via first class, rather than his usual private jet, but he was adapting to a simpler style of life, so he was resolved to make the best of it. The University of D’Qar, as it turned out, was not in the sunny, southern part of California, but in the northern bit. More trees; no beaches. He’d had to fly into Sacramento, not Los Angeles, and his long legs were still protesting the hour-long drive he’d had to endure, side-by-side with Mitaka, in the back of a hired car. The driver, a woman named Janice, had lovingly regaled them both with tales of her seven cats; Ben was still brushing fur off of his black jeans as he stood at the counter of the frankly awful bar he’d located on campus.

Mitaka discreetly shielded a sneeze from him. 

“Why don’t you… go get a table.” Ben gestured over to the back of the dimly-lit bar, and Mitaka half-bowed, then caught himself, glancing around with a nervous expression on his face before darting away to do as instructed. 

When Ben turned back, there was a woman standing behind the bar. 

“What can I get for you?” she asked. 

Ben new how to speak five languages fluently, and in another four more, he had a solid grasp of the essentials:  _ How old are you? Do you want to have sex with me? Don’t call me, I’ll call you.  _ Using his tongue came easily to him in so many ways. 

There were no words in English, or any of those languages, to describe the reaction his body felt to her. Which was… absurd. It was utterly absurd, because she wasn’t indescribably beautiful whatsoever. Her brown hair was pulled up in a no-nonsense ponytail, which she’d looped over into itself, little bits of hair sticking out from the humidity. Her cheeks were freckled, a little tan, but not evenly so, not like a model who kept her skin at perfect Ibiza glow in the depths of winter. Brown eyebrows slashed over hazel-green eyes, and her slightly-chapped lips parted in expectation—

_ She asked me… something, _ Ben thought, as he swallowed thickly. 

“Beer?” she said. 

“Yes,” Ben said, nodding. “Yes. Two pints of your finest.”

The girl behind the bar gave him a curious look, but nodded. He watched, enthralled, as she picked two clean pint glasses, turned to the taps, and filled them expertly. It wasn't that he'd never seen this action before, but the movement of her hands, the way she stood, so unruffled and... Ben couldn't understand it, his reaction. She knocked the foam off of the first one, then let it sit as she did the second, then topped both of them off. Then, she put them up on the bar. 

“Two pints of Dagobah IPA; Seven-fifty,” she said, still peering up at him through thickly-fringed lashes, like he was odd, not famous. 

Ben was shocked to find himself awash in… relief, at that appraisal. 

He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and withdrew one of the odd, American bills for her, very nearly commenting how confusing it was that they were all the same size and color. But that would be strange, because his accent, he knew, was mellow enough to sound passably American. She might think him Canadian, and—

“Here’s your change,” she said, slapping the bills and coinage down on the wood, and turning away.

Ben looked down. It was more than he’d anticipated. He checked his wallet again hastily, realizing that he’d given her a fifty instead of the ten he’d meant to grab. Should he… say something? He was utterly out of sorts, as if he were half-drunk already, even though the drinks he’d had on the plane surely had been out of his system by now. He took hold of the pint glasses, and hesitated, enraptured by the woman’s shapely ass, the way her jeans curved over her hips and thighs. For such a small thing—he could pick her up with one hand, probably, and would absolutely like to try—she was surprisingly shapely. 

At this—almost as if she’d heard him, the woman turned back. Catching him staring. 

His instinct was to smile, and try a line. He was a prince, and she’d be throwing herself at him as soon as she realized who he—

No. 

Not here, he wasn’t.

Here, he was Ben Solo. Normal, non-royal person, a returning college student. Here to finish his degree, and fuck as many women as possible. Although… that last goal somehow dimmed in the cold appraisal of her eyes. 

Maybe not as many as possible. 

Maybe just the one. 

* * *

“He was staring at my ass,” Rey said.

“And?” Tallie said; She had finished with the inventory of the deli meats and had moved to the other side of the fridge, to cheeses. “Your ass is cute.”

“I… that’s not the point.” Rey glared back out through the doorway; the guy was nowhere to be seen, which meant he probably had slunk back to the corner whence he had come. 

“So, what is the point?”

“Rey, will you please stay up front?” Snap said, once again standing in the doorway to the kitchen, surveying Tallie, who was currently holding a rectangular block of havarti bigger than her head, at least pretending to work, while Rey was just standing there. “We have people waiting.”

Rey blushed, and nodded. Like school, it rankled her whenever she was caught being anything less than exceptional. She would stay up front, at the bar, and let Tallie go off on her own theories about hooking up and the purpose of college. She tightened the ties on her apron, and went back up front. 

Only to be greeted by the guy from before. The one with the liquid-dark eyes whose gaze felt like a caress. A not-entirely-unwanted caress. 

“Another round?” Rey said, meeting his eyes and then looking away.  _Summa cum loudly indeed..._

“Yes,” he said. And then, as if it were an afterthought: “Please?”

_ Hmm, _ Rey thought, readying another pair of pint glasses. _ At least he can pretend to be polite… _

But she could feel him, his gaze on her skin, like a caress, and it rankled at her nerves. She’d certainly been hit on, leered at, joked to and about, but this man… this one made her feel something entirely different. A whole new awareness. 

She wasn’t sure she liked it. 

“The same?” Rey asked. “The lager is fifty cents cheaper.”

“Whatever you… recommend,” the man answered. 

Rey snorted. “This isn’t that kind of bar. It’s beer, or cheap bear.”

But he looked at her, with those liquid-dark eyes, and nodded. So Rey reached for the Dagobah IPA tap again. Trying not to think about the plush promise of his mouth. Carefully, she pulled the first pint. 

There was a rational explanation for this response. Rational, if a bit embarrassing. She hadn’t had any action since an ill-advised fling in her first term of Freshman year. Rey wasn’t blind; the man was attractive, if a bit unconventionally so. He had dark hair, dark eyes, a long face and strong nose, altogether a mixture of features which was expressive and ever-changing in each angle and line of shadow in the bar. Handsome, though. A face that begged further study. A mouth that would be equally delicious on her skin or gasping in pleasure as she—

Off to the side, a group of sorority girls had fired up the karaoke machine, and something by Carly Rae Jepsen was being yowled across like a bobcat mating with a siren of some sort. 

Rey could hardly hear it. 

And she felt the cold spill of beer over her hand before she realized, a second later, that the glass had run over. 

“Fuck,” she said, and set the first glass aside so the foam could go down. 

When she looked up, the man was smirking at her. But not in a cruel way. More like… they’d shared a great joke. 

She turned her attention back to the second pour. 

“Seven-fifty,” she said, just loud enough for him to clearly hear over the Carly Rae. 

He pulled his wallet out, and counted out the money once more. Then, after standing there, watching her make change for his ten, she felt a shiver of strange awareness course through her, when his hands picked up the change. Nice, long-fingered hands. Thick fingers. Fuck, it had been too long. 

Without another word, he turned and went back to his table. 

Rey stood there and watched him; the man was drinking with a friend tonight, it seemed; even back in the corner she could see them, the taller guy, the one who had made her feel… and his friend, a more slightly-built man with dark, neat, slicked-down hair. The other one seemed to be wary of the whole situation, like someone who’d never been in a bar before. From his conservative dress and darting glances, Rey wondered if his friend wasn’t newly-escaped from some fundamentalist compound, or something. 

By contrast, the taller man lounged back in the rickety seat like he owned the place. He seemed bored by all the rest of it, clad in his t-shirt and black jeans. Rey thought he looked a bit old for a college student; maybe he was in one of the graduate programs, or a professor. The former was more likely than the latter; professors tended to leave student hangouts alone. But maybe he was one of the ones who hoped to come off as cool. 

Rey found one of the damp towels, and began wiping down the bar. Still watching the pair of them, trying to make it out. 

From the left, the girls at the karaoke machine shifted into a wholly terrible rendition of ‘Every Time We Touch’ by Cascada; Rey made a mental note to cut them all off after their current pitcher. 

The night wore on. Tallie finished up her inventory in the back, and came up to relieve Rey from bar duties. Rey took a tray and rag and went out to wipe down tables, with an eye towards who was still there and what the general lay of the land was. On her tray, she carried a few newly-filled baskets of snacks; why Snap insisted on setting them out for students, Rey never really knew, but the way some of the drinkers tore through them—especially towards the ends of the months, when their dining cards would run out—made her feel like she was supplementing students’ diets. 

Finally, weaving her way through the route that would bring her to him last, Rey arrived at his table. 

He was watching her; she had no idea why she’d even tried to expect something different. And she had no idea why something like this, like his behavior, would’ve unnerved her in any other man, but with him…

“Can I clear your glasses?” Rey asked. The shorter man had come up to Tallie twice more for drinks since Rey had started cleaning. Now, that one seemed quite bleary-eyed, unused to drink, it would seem. 

The other man? The one whose amber eyes felt like warm rain on her bare skin? He seemed unaffected. 

“Sure,” he said. And then he leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, and stared directly down her blouse when she leaned forward. 

“Oi!” 

He didn’t even flinch.

Rey glowered, and straightened up; his eyes followed… first her breasts, then back up to her face. And it was immediately apparent that he’d had more than four drinks tonight, by the flush of his cheeks and the lazy smile on his mouth. 

“Your tits are by far the most interesting thing in this entire dumpster of a bar,” he said, voice as low as hades, as low as her panties immediately demanded to go, before her reason kicked in. “Can’t I at least have a look?”

Rey gaped at him. She’d never had any illusions that her breasts were worthy of being ogled, but… to have it happen so shamelessly, so overtly, made her feel righteously indignant. Without thinking, she grabbed one of the half-finished glasses off of her tray and tossed the remnants of stale beer right in his face. 

He spluttered. The other man stood up; a few others around them stopped their conversations and turned to stare. And Rey felt her heart pounding in her chest, anger making the blood rush loudly in her ears. 

“Get out,” she said. 

Slowly, the man wiped the beer from his face. His hands were huge— _ now isn’t the time _ —and he looked down at his palm with something akin to… incredulity. 

_ Does he think that line was supposed to work? _

“Hey, I’m gonna need to ask you to step out,” Snap said, appearing beside her. 

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said,” Snap replied, utterly unruffled—even when the men stood up.

Rey was not short, for a woman; at five-seven, plus the inch her shoes afforded her, she wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself when she needed to. She was still used to men being taller than her, but nothing could account for the primal reaction her brain pumped through her veins at the way the man towered over her. She felt small, on the knife-edge between sheltered and cornered.

The man didn’t stare at her breasts. Instead, he tugged along his shorter friend, and the two of them stomped out of the bar.

When they were gone, Rey let out a shaky breath.

“You okay?” Snap asked. “They didn’t touch you, did they?”

She shook her head. Snap was a good guy. 

“No, no, I’m okay.”

She was—and wasn’t. Why was her traitorous body still responding to his gaze? Why were her hands shaking—because it wasn’t entirely out of fear. He had left her feeling shaken in a way that Rey couldn’t explain. It was just nerves, though. It had to be. Otherwise…

Rey slowly put the empty glasses back on the tray, and took them back to the kitchen. 

So much for the 'regular college experience.' Men—hashtag-not-all-men-but-most-men—were garbage. But at the very least, she was definitely going to have a story to tell Rose when she got off shift tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey had hardly come in the door of her apartment before Rose appeared in the hallway, a flurry of coat and scarf. Rose and Rey’s shared apartment had a central hallway, a straight shot from the door that made it feel rather like a bowling lane, with a little living area and the door to Rey’s room branching off to the left, and the kitchen and the door to Rose’s room to the right, with the bathroom straight at the end of the hall. 

It was from this bathroom that Rose had appeared, and Rey was surprised and pleased to see that her friend was prettied-up, wearing makeup, with her sleek black hair curled away from her face. 

“Hot date tonight?” Rey said, setting her own bag down on the kitchen table. 

“Finn said he wanted to meet,” Rose said, a little breathless. “They rearranged his schedule, last-minute, so—”

“Have fun!” Rey said. 

Rose’s face brightened. “I’ll be back late. Maybe. I’ll text you, if—”

“Just go,” Rey laughed, as Rose’s blush deepened. 

If Rose stayed over at Finn’s place… then Rey would definitely be happy for her friend. Rose gave her a quick hug, and then went for the door. 

A moment later, Rey was left alone in their apartment. She sighed, and stretched, back and shoulders tired from work, and from holding in the tension during her walk home from the bar. All the way home, she’d been unable to get the look in that man’s—that _asshole’s_ —eyes out of her head. And because Rose wasn’t here to vent to, Rey had to just keep steeping in it, the stew of confusion and frustration and desire—

No. 

That wasn’t the right word for it. And even if it was, what did that say about her? That she was drawn to some absolute asshole just because of the way his height and his eyes and his fucking _hands_ made her feel? 

Absolutely mental. 

Rey tossed her hoodie onto the back of one of the chairs, and went to go take a shower. Her hands still smelled faintly of ham and hops, and despite the fact that Kanata’s had been smoke-free for years, there was always a faint film of it that permeated the air, as if the building itself was slowly exhaling it back onto all of its occupants. As the shower warmed up, Rey stripped off her work uniform and tossed it in the laundry bag. It was getting full; she’d have to go to the laundromat down the block soon, unless she could hand-wash a few shirts, hang them to dry... 

She waited a bit, tested the temperature of the water with her hand, and then got into the shower. She resolutely did _not_ think any more about a certain pair of dark, pretty eyes. 

* * *

“I’ve seen prisoners given better conditions than these,” Ben said, when Mitaka had pushed the door to their assigned dorm room open and Ben had tentatively stepped inside. The space was… humble, to put it nicely. 

“It’s not so bad,” Mitaka said. But the disappointment was all too evident in the pitch of his nervous voice. The prince’s temper was, to put it mildly, rather legendary. 

The room was narrow, with a pair of loft beds with desks beside them situated to the left and right of the door, and just one very smudged window in a metal frame, through which only darkness could be seen. The floors were linoleum tiles, tan-speckled taupe, and the ceiling was water-stained tiles which perhaps had been cream-colored at some point. Now, the whole place was aged and run-down, with painted cinder block walls that were chipped and marked from past occupants’ posters and various shenanigans. There was just one current occupant of the four-bed room, a red-haired man wearing, of all things, a sport coat; he didn’t look up from his computer, or even acknowledge Ben or Mitaka as they stood in the doorway. 

“This is the proper room, your ro—sir,” Mitaka said. 

Ben shot him a glare. 

“I mean… the proper room. Room five-twelve, as indicated.”

“Either come inside of leave,” the red-haired man said, his voice clearly pointed and more than a bit put out. “I’m in the middle of a tournament, if you don’t mind. You two can argue about who gets which bed, just shut the door. When one of the idiots down the hall tries to cook a Hot Pocket on a hard drive, the smell creeps in.”

Ben stepped further in, glancing at the man’s computer and smirking slightly at the chess game currently in progress on the screen. It had smelled vaguely of burnt cheese and ozone out in the hall. Mitaka followed, and set their bags down on the floor. He shut the door, and waited for his orders.

“Well, Mitaka,” Ben said. “Do you want the upper bunk, or the lower one?”

“Whichever you prefer,” his bodyguard-slash-babysitter answered, dutifully. 

Ben picked up his black duffle bag, and tossed it onto the upper bunk. Mitaka glanced over at their roommate, and did the same with his own, smaller bag, onto the lower bunk of the same bed. 

“Let me explain a few things, before you get settled,” the red-haired man said, still focused on his game. “Everything on _this_ side of the room is mine. Don’t touch anything, don’t use my computer, don’t eat my food. I’m allergic to dairy, shellfish, soy, peanuts, and gluten, so don’t even _think_ of bringing those things into the room. If I’m asleep, don’t wake me up. If I have my headphones on, don’t bother me, unless the building is on fire.”

Ben waited for a continuation of this rant, and, when it seemed to be over, gave his roommate a little mock-salute. “Aye aye, sir.”

“My first name is Armitage, but I prefer it if you’d address me by my surname, Hux.”

Ben and Mitaka both blinked at this. As one who’d been raised with more middle names and honorary titles than any one man had a right to bear, Ben could, perhaps, understand why someone would prefer to go by a surname. Especially when saddled with the first name of _Armitage._ Still, the way he’d… decreed it was a little amusing.

“Okay,” Ben said. “Hux.”

But Hux has already donned his headphones, and was back to intently focusing on his chess game. Ben watched for a moment longer, and then shook his head, turning back to Mitaka. 

“Would it be too optimistic to assume there was a second bar on campus?”

Mitaka, already pale, looked even paler. “Your—I wouldn’t—classes, in the morning…”

Ben’s smile widened. Apart from the first beer, which Ben had all but ordered Mitaka to drink, he hadn’t had anything at the place they’d just left. Instead, Ben had drunk them all, but the weak beers weren’t nearly enough to make a guy his size feel more than a faint, pleasant sense of relaxation. Which had been dashed, courtesy of the beer in his face. Still, the fire in the girl’s eyes, when she had done it… there was something invigorating and almost novel about the whole situation. His brief flare of rage had faded to almost admiration for her.

She hadn’t known him, been afraid of him or deferential to him; what a refreshing novelty that was.

Then, his smile faltered as he stood and surveyed his living accommodations. That meant he was going to have to win women over using his charming personality alone. 

This… might be more of a challenge than he’d first presumed.

* * *

The following morning was the first day of the term, and Rey was in a panic. Because she’d been so preoccupied with her other classes, and with work, and with rent, and with everything else, it had taken her until approximately twenty minutes before the start of her Shakespeare class to realize she’d completely forgotten to track down all the plays she’d need for it—which is how she found herself makeup-less, hastily-dressed, and faintly out of breath, ducking into the campus bookstore.

All of her engineering texts and physics texts and math texts were online at this point, for the most part—an advantage of the upper-division program and a grant she’d received; she hadn’t even thought about it until she’d taken a casual glance at her course schedule that morning to confirm class time and room number. 

Rey scanned down the rows of bookshelves, then jogged down the row marked with ENG. From there, she looked down at the tags on the shelves until she found the section for her class. There was a list, printed on the tag itself, and Rey checked and double-checked, picking up little paperbacks of _Macbeth, The Tempest, Cymbeline, Collected Sonnets,_ and _Much Ado About Nothing_ . Someone stepped behind her in the aisle, and Rey moved closer to the shelf to allow them to pass. But when she reached out to pick up the last copy of _Hamlet_ , someone else’s hand was already on it. 

“Excuse me, I…”

Rey turned, and looked up at the owner of the hand. 

The dark-eyed, dark-haired, towering, _familiar_ owner.

“ _You_ ,” Rey said, narrowing her eyes at him, hating the way her belly flipped at his nearness.

“Me,” the man replied. His eyes swept down her arm—not to her breasts, not this time, anyway, but out to the book. “I’m sorry—”

“I need this for a class,” Rey said. 

“I’m not here for my own amusement,” the man replied. But then he seemed to soften. 

He handed the book over to her. 

Rey looked down at it. Then back up. “Thank you.”

The weight of his gaze was too much. And she still needed to get to class—which had probably started by now, as she’d been standing here, staring like a concussed duck.

“I’m sorry, I…” Rey turned, and went back down the aisle, heading towards the register. He followed behind her, and Rey didn’t exactly try to stay and wait for him, but it was inevitable, with his long-legged stride, that he’d follow right behind her as they both rushed to get to class. 

It was five minutes past the start of class when they arrived. And, fate being what it was, there were just two seats left, right at the front of class. 

Rey felt her cheeks color with embarrassment. At the front of the classroom, a willowy woman with ethereal lavender hair and a drapey tunic and leggings paused only momentarily to nod at them in acknowledgement.

“Participation will account for forty percent of your grade. Essays will be another forty percent, and attendance—”at this, she picked up a pair of papers from her lectern, and glided over to where Rey was sitting, depositing one on her desk, and one on his— “will account for the remaining twenty percent. Please aim to be on time to class in the future.”

“Sorry,” Rey said, softly; the man didn’t say anything. 

The lavender-haired professor gave Rey a soft smile. Then, she looked out across the rest of the twenty-odd students. Rey glanced down at the syllabus. Professor Amilyn Holdo. 

“Right. Shakespeare. What do we know about him?”

Silence. 

And then, from somewhere behind Rey, a student spoke: “He wrote plays?”

“Yes, correct,” Dr. Holdo smiled, a sort of closed-mouth, secret smile. “What else?”

“He wrote… sonnets?” 

Half of the class chuckled at this; they’d successfully read the book list as well, so it seemed. 

“Yes,” Dr. Holdo nodded. “True. And as you can all see, we’ll be covering some of the sonnets just after midterms. But let’s talk about the plays. What’s important about them?”

Nothing was quite as excruciating as sitting with a gaggle of undergraduates in a 200-level course, waiting in the silence of a professor’s expectations. The professor raised her not-lavender eyebrows, and looked around at them. 

Finally, the man beside her—the breast-ogler, near-book-thief, he of the voice that made Rey feel decidedly unsettled in the best, worst way—muttered a reply.

“I’m sorry?” Dr. Holdo said, and Rey looked over at him, taking in how he was slumped back in his seat a little, clearly uncomfortable. 

“They were made to be performed,” he said. “They’re… theater, not literature.”

The professor smiled at this, although Rey thought it was perhaps a bit rude, telling a professor of literature that what she was going to teach them wasn’t _actually_ literature. More than a bit mansplainy, if you asked her… 

“They are, indeed, plays. They were meant to be performed, which means that this class is going to have a performance component to our class sessions.”

Rey suppressed her groan, but several others, in the back of the class from the sound of it, didn’t. 

“Three rows, you two, you two, and you, turn and say hello, introduce yourself to your scene partner for the remainder of class.” Professor Holdo returned to the front of the class, locating a whiteboard marker from the tray and beginning to write. 

Rey turned to her left. 

The man turned to his right. 

Their eyes met. 

“Shit,” Rey muttered. 

And the man just grinned. 

* * *

“Rey Nieman,” his new scene partner said, with a glare that could melt the cheap laminate from the top of his desk. 

Ben reached out, and made to shake her hand across the aisle. “Ben… Solo.”

She—Rey—glanced down at his proffered hand like it was a moldy sandwich, and reluctantly took it. Ben suppressed the urge to kiss the back of it, which wasn’t likely to go over well. 

The rest of the class was pairing up, and up at the front, the professor was still writing on the whiteboard. But yet again, Ben could feel… something… passing between them, between himself and this marvelous girl who was glowering at him. It was strange, how her disdain seemed to fuel his interest. Maybe it was just the thrill of the chase—a feeling he rarely felt, pursuing women who knew who he was. 

He had fucked models and heard them giggle as he’s torn off lingerie sets that cost more than this university’s tuition, been with heiresses who could buy the entire city if they so much as begged daddy for a present, and here she was, in an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of leggings which were… well, he was a fan of the leggings, and everything they hinted at underneath. Which was a lot, given how threadbare they were. But it wasn’t just her body, it was… her. The way that she was real, human and untouchable. 

Ben didn't want to think about the implications of that belated revelation; if the women before her had cooed over him simply for his title—and he was sure some of them had, but surely not _all_ of them…

He frowned at this, and decided to shelve his self-awareness and emotional growth temporarily. It could wait. 

“Let’s all take a look at some of Shakespeare’s dialogue,” Dr. Holdo was saying, up at the front of the class. “Before we dive into the play itself, go ahead and turn to act two, scene two of _Macbeth_. Read this exchange with your partner, and listen to the rhythm of the words.”

Ben picked up his own little paperback copy of the play, and found the scene. His mother had taken him, in a slightly happier time, to go see Sir Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood perform the play in London. To his side, Rey was still flipping through her copy. He looked over, and she glanced up at him. 

“Sorry,” she muttered. Then, she looked down at the page, and read the first line: _“I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?”_

“No,” he said, “That’s my line, you’re reading Lady Macbeth.”

“Oh,” Rey said, brow furrowing. “Wait, why am I reading the girl, just because I’m a girl?”

Ben resisted the urge to smile at her. “Do you want to read Macbeth, then?”

“No,” Rey said, looking back down at the page and (he could only guess, given her discomfort) seeing that Macbeth’s lines were much more substantial. “Go ahead.”

He gave her an impenetrable look, and repeated the line she’d just spoken. 

Rey answered him with the next: _“I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?”_

_“When?”_

_“Now?”_

_“As I descended.”_

_“Aye,”_ Rey replied, watching him. 

_“Hark! Who lies in the second chamber?”_

_“Donald-bain?”_ Rey said. “Not sure how to—”

He sighed. _“This is a sorry sight.”_

“I’m doing my best here,” Rey began—but he just laughed. 

“No, no, it’s the line.”

Rey turned the page. _“A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.”_

 _“There’s one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried. ‘Murder!’”_ he continued, _“That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them. But they did say their prayers, and addressed them again to sleep.”_

 _“There are two lodged together,”_ Rey answered. 

_“One cried, ‘God bless us!’ and ‘Amen’ the other, as they had seen me with these hangman’s hands. Listening their fear I could not say “Amen,” when they did say ‘God bless us!’”_

Rey hesitated; Ben looked up, and saw that her cheeks were flushed a little. “You’re… quite good at this… um… _Consider it not so deeply.”_  
_“But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen?’ I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ stuck in my throat.”_ Ben tried not to think of the last time words had been stuck in his throat. It had not been prayers, but apologies... _  
_ _“These deeds must not be thought after these ways,”_ Rey answered. _“So, it will make us mad.”_

* * *

“Alright!” Dr. Holdo said, clapping her hands together to get the class’ attention. “Let’s pause there, and take it from the top again. And this time, I want you to read, not what it says literally, but what it _feels_ to you, what it means. Don’t think too hard about it. Just go with whatever comes to mind.”

Rey flipped back two pages, feeling nervous all of a sudden. It was one thing to read the archaic English on the page as it was, but another thing entirely to try to make sense of it and say it in her own way. This was not the sort of thing she expected on day one. Plus… he was _good_. He had a lovely voice, emotive and expressive, and he seemed to actually understand what the hell he was saying, unlike her. 

“Okay,” she said to him. “You can… start…”

“I’ve done it,” Ben replied, in a low voice, as casual as you please. “Didn’t you hear a noise?”

Rey blushed deeper; she wanted to stare at him, and not the page, but she had to look down to read and try to figure out what to say next. “I heard the owl scream and the crickets… um, chirp. Did you... talk?”

“When?”

“Now?” How could she change that one word?

“As I came down,” he replied. 

“Aye—yes,” Rey said. 

“Who was in the second room?” His eyes were dark and intense as he stared at her.

Then she looked down at the page. “It’s… Donald?”

He let out a shaking exhale, but his eyes… his eyes were fixed on hers. “This is a mess.”

“A… bad idea, to call it a mess?”

If he was at all put off by her excruciating attempts at translation, he didn’t break, or show it. It was like he already had it in his mind, like… when Rey looked at an equation. It came so easily to her, then, but this was not her wheelhouse.  

It was his, though. 

He swam through the text like a minnow in a river. “One of them laughed in his sleep. He cried out, ‘Murder!’ And then they woke each other. I stood and heard them. But they just prayed, and fell back to sleep.”

Damn him. How did he manage to make that whole wall of text into something moving, emotive, engaged? 

“There are two, um, sharing the room,” Rey replied, extremely tentatively. 

“One of them cried, ‘God bless us,’ and the other one said ‘Amen,’ even though they saw me with my… executioner’s hands. I couldn't say amen, though. I couldn’t say it.”

“Don’t think about it,” Rey hastily replied. 

“Why couldn’t I say it?” he shot back, like a live-wire, arcing across the space between their desks, his whole posture hunched as if he bore some terrible burden. “I needed the blessing, and yet it stuck in my throat.”

“Y-you can’t think about it like that,” Rey said softly, glancing down at her book, then leaving it where it was, going on instinct. “You’ll go mad.”

She looked back up. For a moment, just the briefest of moments, everything stood still around them. They’d sped through that second reading, urged on by some strange force that Rey had never experienced. Everything else had fallen away—the noise of the other students reading, the morning’s frustration… The memory of his rude, drunk words. Rey cleared her throat, and picked her book back up. It had closed, and she rifled through it, trying to find where they’d left off. Just to give her hands something to do, to give her eyes somewhere else to look… 

Up at the front, the professor clapped her hands again, and the rest of the class settled down.

“Let’s talk about language,” Dr. Holdo said. “Shakespeare, as you all know, wrote plays. He didn’t write them to be passively read, but to be performed. And they appealed to all layers of society, rich and poor, and everything in-between. But because of how they were written, what was once accessible and human and approachable, now seems, well, incomprehensible, to most of us, anyway.”

A few of the students chuckled at this, and Rey smiled. 

“Did some of you experience that?”

A few murmured noises of assent. 

“And the second time, what was it like, having to shift Shakespeare’s words into modern, conversational language?”

“Easier,” one girl said. 

“I thought it was harder,” another chimed in. “Having to do it like that.”

“I had to translate it in my head,” a third, male student added. “Like a different language.”

A few other students agreed; Rey did as well. Ben, however, hadn’t seemed to have had a problem with it at all. She glanced over at him, noted how he was sitting, long legs splayed out like he was intent on taking up the invisible seats beside him on a public bus. But his head was downcast, his eyes shielded by his long lashes. This was easy for him, but he… it was like he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Didn’t want to stand out or be recognized at all. 

He’s shy, Rey realized. Or something like it. She couldn’t figure him out at all. Brash one moment, uncertain the next. A big dumb privileged jock who had tender eyes and words that melted in his mouth like bittersweet chocolate. 

She forced gaze back at the professor, willing herself to stop dwelling on it. _Don’t think about it,_ she heard the play’s words in her mind once more. 

“Engaging with the story is more than just analyzing the words on the page. These plays are alive. You have to perform it, to feel into it, to really study it…” 

Rey had to admit that this was true. She pulled out her notebook and found her favorite mechanical pencil, opening to a new page and neatly dating it, as Dr. Holdo began her lecture.   


* * *

After class, he shoved his books into his new-looking bookbag as the rest of the class filed out. He seemed to be hesitating, waiting for her, and this just rankled Rey even more. Finally, when it was just the two of them in the room, after Dr. Holdo had floated out, Rey looked up at him. 

“Listen—” she began, but he cut across her. 

“I’m sorry, Rey.”

“What?”

“For… what I said to you. Last night.” He was working those plush lips, that full, filthy mouth, like the concept of an apology was a new flavor he’d just tasted. “It was inappropriate. I apologize.”

Rey felt her anger ebb away. She looked up at him, and nodded—a hesitant nod, but a nod nonetheless. “Yes. Does that line usually work on girls?”

His face broke into a grin, and he hoisted the strap of his backpack up over one massive shoulder. “Sometimes.”

Rey echoed his movement, and put her own backpack on one shoulder; she rolled her eyes. “Well, it doesn’t work on me. So save your breath.”

He put his hands up defensively. “Duly noted.”

She sighed, unable to tell if he was mocking her or not. “Look, I need to get an A in this class… and somehow I don’t think she’ll let us change partners. So we’re stuck together, despite my wishes to the contrary.”

“Ouch,” Ben replied, placing a hand over his heart. “Rejected, yet again.”

Rey bit back a smile. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” He tossed his hair back in an elegant, yet douchey move. She felt her tenderness ebb away at this, and at the way he looked down his nose at her. Granted, he was taller than her, so the looking down bit was inevitable, but Rey thought that even if he had been three feet tall and not seven or whatever he was, he’d still manage to look… imperious. “What makes you think I’ll keep you from getting a good grade?”

Rey just stared at him. “Between the two of us, which one was taking notes.”

He made a face.

“You weren’t taking notes,” Rey said. “That’s kind of important in college.”

He shrugged. “I’ll remember it.”

Rey shook her head, and laughed once at this, despite—or, perhaps, because of her annoyance. “Well, whatever. Just… pay attention next time. I’m not carrying you.”

Before he could reply, she turned—heading out the doorway with the feeling of his eyes on her back, and the distinct impression that he was paying attention to something other than Shakespeare. 


	4. Chapter 4

“So, are you saying you  _ wouldn’t _ take him up to the stacks?”

Rey was sitting on the floor, her notes spread out across her and Rose’s thrift-store coffee table, while Rose lounged across the love seat, watching  _ Space Wars: The Revenge Awakens _ on the television for what had to be the umpteenth time. Rey had been venting, at length, about her interactions with Ben Solo in class that morning. Trying to convey just how annoying and affected and frustrating he was. Carefully couching it so that his... his aptitude, all right, she'd grant him that, but it was just so... _ugh_. And also maybe a little bit about his eyes, and his mouth, and his hands… Maybe she wasn’t getting her frustration across properly. Even though she’d spent the better part of the movie on the subject, to her chagrin. She wasn’t enthralled by him or anything, she merely wanted to be very specific about her disdain. 

But, at Rose’s surgically-precise question, Rey sighed, and turned to glance up at her friend. 

“Okay, A: Going at it in the dusty stacks of library is fairly disgusting, and B: You  _ literally _ say that about  _ every _ hot guy!”

“Oh, so you admit he’s hot?” Rose said coyly. 

Rey rolled her eyes. “I— he’s… he’s not... _un_ attractive. But you’d think that after throwing beer in someone’s face, he’d get the message, but apparently not.”

“And what message is that supposed to send?”

“To… leave me alone? To stop looking at me like… to pay attention in class, and not ruin this for me. We’re partners, and I’m sure his grades are going to drag mine down no matter how hard I work.”

“Hm,” Rose said. “That’s... a lot for half of a beer to convey. Maybe you should’ve gone for a full glass. Makes a stronger statement.”

Rey grinned. “If he tries it again, I’ll throw the glass as well. He’s got the kind of face that probably would be improved by a scar.”

Watching the screen for a moment longer, Rey felt a twisting sort of unpleasantness sink into her gut. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, the truth, and her overactive conscience prodded at her for saying so. Yes, he did have a… unusual collection of features. The plush mouth, the dark eyes, the lean face and… but that wasn’t the point. It was easy to see him as some kind of villain in a play. Maybe it was just that she couldn’t understand him. 

Rey tore her attention away from the thrilling space battles to focus on the work in front of her. Now that she had the first few syllabi from her courses today, she could transfer all of the due dates and important notes into her planner. Which, rationally, she knew was less efficient than doing it on her phone or digitally, but there was just something about doing it by hand that kept all of it making sense. She dutifully charted out paper due dates, midterms, holidays, and so forth, fighting against the impulse to think about the most annoying human on the planet, Ben Solo. 

“And just because he was good at reading it aloud, that doesn’t mean he’ll actually be of any use whatsoever when it comes to papers,” Rey continued. “I’m going to have to work just as hard in  _ this _ class as I will in my Soil Mechanics class. Doubly so, since he’s apparently decided he’s too good to be taking notes.”

“Sounds like you really hate him,” Rose deadpanned. 

Rey threw a crumpled-up Post-it note at her. “Yes. I  _ do _ . And don’t look at me like that.”

“Shh,” Rose said, “This is the part where the forlorn bad boy duels his true love in the snow.”

Rey looked back down at her planner. Rose was no help at all. 

* * *

Rey got through her Tuesday classes, and woke bright and early Wednesday morning to ensure she had time to get to the Shakespeare class on time. With the rare indulgence of a store-bought coffee in her hand, she was one of the first to arrive in the class. Dr. Holdo was there, and one other student; Rey had half a mind to go up and ask if she could change seats or swap partners for the term, but resisted it. She would make do with what she had been given, and anyway, it would likely mess up the class’ even numbers. There was nothing, Rey was sure, that Ben Solo could do to disrupt her perfect grades. 

Nothing, it seemed, except… not showing up for class at all. 

Dr. Holdo started her lecture. Rey waited—five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen—until it was evident that he just simply wasn’t coming. 

They began their discussion on the first two acts of  _ Macbeth _ , and Rey took furious notes, snapping her mechanical pencil’s lead more times than usual. When the time came to do another partnered reading, Rey silently fumed as she imagined throwing Ben into the cauldron alongside the eye of newt and toe of frog. 

Where  _ was _ he?

“Prophecy,” Dr. Holdo said, when they were done with their readings and focused back at the front of the class. “Desire. Greed. Ambition. Coercion. The most basic definition of a tragedy is a story of a good person who comes to ruin, due to his flaws.  _ Macbeth _ is, obviously, a tragedy—” at this, her eyes twinkled “—apologies to those of you who have not yet finished the play.”

A few of the students laughed. Rey smiled, too. 

“But in order to understand the true depths of the tragedy, we must first establish, not the titular character’s villainy and misdeeds, but his goodness,” the professor continued. “It is that contrast, the potential of the character to be a good king, a good leader, a good military commander, a good husband, held up against his misdeeds and misjudgments, which arouses those twin emotions of pity and fear, as we follow him down into the darkness. It is his descent, against his potential, which creates those emotions.”

_ Ben should've come to class today,  _ Rey thought. He had read the part with such clarity, and now, Rey was left alone, feeling foolish that she missed him and foolish that something which seemed to come so easily for him was an uphill struggle for her. She was an engineering major, for god’s sake…

“Otherwise, it does nothing to see a wicked man fall further,” Dr. Holdo said, as she went to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. “Today, we’re going to talk about characters and their inner motivations…”

* * *

“Your first paper will be due on Friday,” Dr. Holdo said, as class wrapped up and Rey packed her things into her bag. “Nothing too difficult, just a five-page response to the text on one of the themes we covered. If you need help, my office hours and email are on the syllabus.”

Rey was fuming. 

Outside, she stalked through the quad, ruminating on every fear she’d had since she first set eyes on him. Ben Solo was going to ruin her grade. He was going to tank her chances of getting into her graduate program, and then she’d be out of options, and have to—

Wait. 

_ He looks familiar… _

Rey sped up her pace slightly, catching up with the harried-looking, dark-haired man who was clutching a bag from Rogue One Grocery down the street. 

“Hey,” Rey said, “You’re friends with Ben Solo, right?”

The man glanced over at her. “He’s—”

“Do you two room together, by any chance?”

“We—”

“Because I really need to talk to him,” Rey said, still keeping pace as they wove their way through the trees and over to the row of residence halls. To the right, white-bricked Hoth Hall, where Rey had spent her Freshman year, known for perpetually being too cold no matter what the season, and next to it, Scarif Hall, which was mossy and always too warm. But the dark-haired man turned, and headed towards Hoth Hall’s twin, Crait Hall. 

“We… room together, yes,” he said, a little winded. “What—”

“Great.” Rey said. Her smile was more like a grimace. And it seemed to brook no disagreement.

The guy gave her a strange look, up and down, less appraising and more… checking for threats, somehow. Then he walked on, turning towards the red-brick pathway leading up to Crait Hall’s front doors. Rey darted past him, opening the door with a too-wide smile. “After you?”

The man hesitated, then nodded. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

Rey wasn’t letting him out of her sight. 

* * *

Crait Hall was neither too hot, nor too cold, but its white-painted cinder blocks had the same rust-red marks of age and wear as many of the other residence halls. As Rey followed the man—who introduced himself as Mitaka—up to the room, she looked at the scuffs along the walls, likely from numerous students moving in and out and doing God-knows-what in the hallways. A few doors were open; a few people were playing music, or talking, voices carrying; laughter from the room a few doors down from where Mitaka stood didn’t divert Rey from her purpose, however. He opened room 512, and Rey prepared herself for battle. 

Inside, however…

Inside was not what she was expecting. At all. 

Rey was no stranger to dorm-room messes. But inside room 512, it looked more like a showroom than a dorm room. One of the desks to the left of the door had been draped with a crisp, navy-blue tablecloth, onto which a hot plate, toaster oven, and a bowl of fresh fruit had been arranged. The general dorm-aroma of laundry piles, dryer sheets, Lysol, and unwashed male bodies was subdued under a rather fresh smell, like lemon or… she couldn’t place it. To the right, the other occupant of the room—a red-haired man who was focused on his computer, headphones on—didn’t even look up to acknowledge her. The place was… almost disturbingly tidy.

Rey looked back to her left, and her eyes narrowed as they settled on the only disheveled section of the room: The topmost bunk, a moving mass of rumpled sheets and a blanket that was halfway falling through the rungs. Mitaka sat down the bag of groceries on the table, and set about doing… something… with them, but Rey could only stare in horror as the sheets moved, and the pale, broad, muscular torso of Ben Solo was revealed.

“Good morning, si— Ben,” Mitaka said. “This young lady insisted on following me up… said she had some… business with you?”

Ben looked down at Rey, and rubbed at his eyes. “Oh. Good morning.”

“Good  _ morning _ ?” Rey said. “Are you all high? It’s nearly eleven!”

“Before noon is still morning,” Ben said, with a deep yawn and a stretch so intense it audibly cracked his joints. He was too tall to sit up in the bunk bed without ducking, but propped himself up on one arm as he looked down at her with a curious, almost amused expression on his sleep-softened face.

“You missed class.” Rey soldiered on, desperate to ignore the response in her body at the warmth in his expression. “You  _ slept through  _ class, and I had to sit there, like an idiot—”

“Oh, shit,” Ben said. He raked his free hand through his tousle of dark hair, and blinked down at her. “That was today, wasn’t it.”

“Yes, it happens every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, in case you suddenly forgot how college works—”

“Sorry,” Ben muttered. He nimbly lowered himself over the edge of the bunk bed and landed, barefoot, on the floor, turning to face a now-flustered Rey. 

She suddenly didn’t know where to look; thankfully, he had been wearing black boxer-briefs to sleep in, but that was it—and Rey, standing in the middle of the room, was confronted by a broad expanse of torso, and chest, and arms, and—she didn’t dare look back down, but not only was he _shredded,_ it was obvious he was as proportional _everywhere—_

“Do you have something, a… shirt, or something, that you could put on?” 

Ben just smirked at her. 

“Breakfast is almost ready,” Mitaka chimed in; both Ben and Rey looked over at him. 

Mitaka had donned an apron, and was whisking some sort of yellow sauce in a little pan, over the hot plate. He had already plated up a toasted English muffin, ham, and poached eggs on a china plate. 

“Are you… are you making eggs Benedict, on a hot plate, in a dorm room?”

“Yes,” Ben said, as Mitaka opened, then hastily closed his mouth, and went back to whisking. “A typical student breakfast… Would you care to join us?”

“No, thank you.” Rey shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. “Look, I don’t know whether this whole thing is some sort of game to you, or whether you’re some spoiled rich boy who doesn’t see value in education, but this matters to me. It matters a lot to me. And when you don’t show up, it puts me in the position of having to—”

“Do you have a statue?” Ben said, voice mild and innocently curious.

“A—a what?”

“People who are as righteous as you are usually have some sort of statue.” He grinned as he said it, picking up an orange from the fruit bowl and digging his nails into the bright skin. 

Rey felt her flush deepen. “There’s a difference between being righteous and being right, and I happen to be right, and—”

“Excuse me,” the red-haired roommate chimed in. “There’s a young woman in our room.”

Everyone ignored him. Ben kept peeling his orange, Mitaka kept whisking, and Rey… kept not looking at his body.

“If you’re just going to ruin this, then please, just drop the class.” Rey took a step towards him, ignoring the lurch in her gut, the pure physical response to that much bare skin on that much of a man, and forced herself to look in his eyes instead. 

But Ben’s eyes narrowed, even as his smile widened. “No.”

Rey swallowed. He was just… too much. Too big, too tall, too overwhelming. 

Too shirtless. 

She gathered her wits back together with all the efficacy of someone herding a litter of inquisitive kittens. 

“Well then you better be there next time, and you better be prepared.”

* * *

Rey had stomped out of the room, and out of Crait hall, with a righteous temper brewing like storm clouds in her mind. 

_ Horrible _ man. 

What was his game? Had he been put here on this earth for the sole purpose of tormenting her? He had much more of a sway over her emotions than Rey wanted to admit—and she was already forced to admit that it was already getting out of hand. She had to force herself to focus through her next class, and then heading to Kanata’s almost right afterward—with only a short break to go home, drop off her bags, and change—Rey resolved that if he dared to show his face in the bar again, she’d shove his hot, muscular, perfect body right into the freezer. 

The freezer sounded great as well, right about now. Rey’s been feeling flushed ever since she stood eye-to-pecs with him, back in his room. Ben Solo was, for lack of a better term,  _ shredded _ ; he definitely worked out. 

_ What does it matter to me, what he looks like?  _ Rey thought, mopping up a spill with the mop, as a group of quite possibly the same sorority girls snarled their way through Taylor Swift’s  _ Look What You Made Me Do _ in the back corner.  _ Or what he does. So long as he comes to class, he can look however he likes.  _

She dragged the mop through the last swipe of beer, and put it in the top of the bucket, rinsing it out and preparing to look for a route through the tables and chairs so she could wheel it back behind the counter. Half-expecting to see Ben Solo in there again, she was… relieved, maybe, but not quite, to not see him at all. 

It was good that he wasn’t here. He’d been thrown out, and Snap wasn’t here tonight but Rey wasn’t afraid to throw him out again. Especially if he made more comments about her breasts…

At this thought, her nipples tightened. 

Just the temperature in here tonight, and nothing more. Rey rubbed at her arms, trying to warm the goosebumps that had nothing to do with the chill. 

She did not like him. 

She certainly didn't respect him, and that was foundational to anything even remotely resembling like.

No, she hated him. She hated Ben Solo, stupid shredded body and smirk and... _ugh._

* * *

Ben was waiting outside, on a bench near, but not too close to the bar. He had half-heartedly pulled out a pack of cigarettes, a little anxious, a little more nervous than he wanted to admit. Maybe she wasn’t there. He’d never been a serious smoker, just a casual one, a social one. Now, though, without anyone to sit with, it seemed pointless. But then, as he checked and double-checked the pockets of his jacket, he found that his lighter was gone, and, frustrated, he got up to toss the remainder of the pack in the nearby trash bin. 

As soon as he’d launched the crumpled pack into the bin, Rey came out of the bar. Behind her, the lights of the bar flickered, then turned off. It was Wednesday, not a prime night for drinking, even for college students, apparently. 

He turned, and Rey caught sight of him. 

“Hey,” he said. Casual, cautious. A tentative hand extended across a chasm of the ways he’d disappointed her. 

“Hey.” She looked tired, yet still beautiful, even in the sickly sulfur-yellow of the nearby streetlight. When he stepped into place beside her on her walk, she didn’t raise the alarm.

_ So far, so good.  _

“Rey, I’m sorry, for this morning.”

“You’ve already apologized for that,” she said. “So long as you show up to class on Friday, I don’t care—”

“Not for that,” Ben said. “For… after. For calling you righteous. I was… an asshole, and I’m sorry. I should’ve realized that this means a lot to you.”

“And it doesn’t mean anything to you?” she countered. 

Ben stopped; so did Rey. For a moment, they just stood there, looking at each other, uncertain and caught up in the moment. 

“It should,” Ben said. “It does.”

She gave him a tired little half-smile, her expression and posture softening just a fraction. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it. I’m sorry, I’m just… really tired right now.” 

Ben’s gentle smile fell. Why did he care what she thought of him? He hadn’t made a point of caring what an entire nation thought of him; what made  _ this  _ girl special? 

“Can I… can I walk you home?”

She laughed at this, looking left and then right, at the mostly-deserted part of the street. “I can take care of myself.”

“I have absolutely no doubt of that.” 

Her eyes widened, and her gaze slipped away. 

“Sorry,” he added, taking a step back from her; clearly, his presence was making her uncomfortable. And if he wanted to learn, wanted to at least try and pretend he was Ben Solo, normal, average, non-terrible returning college student, then he’d back off, right now. “Good night, Rey.”

He turned, tucked his hands in his pockets, and walked away. And if she called out his name, it must’ve been lost to the sound of traffic. 


	5. Chapter 5

Rey set her keys down in the bowl by the door, and kicked off her shoes. It was quiet in her apartment, and from the looks of it, Rose hadn’t come home. _Good for her,_ Rey thought—although she fought back the faint tinge of… it wasn’t jealousy, not exactly. Something else. Something both happy and complicated.

A feeling for which Rey didn’t quite have a name. Longing, maybe. Earnest joy for her friend. A sense of her own touch-starved life, always waiting, waiting for people who moved on and lived good lives while she watched from the sidelines. 

She was being stupid. Her exhaustion had worn her down for the night, and what she needed was sleep, not… whatever this was. 

It was impossible to feel anything close to ill will for Rose. She had been a constant friend to Rey since they’d met at age thirteen, when the Tico family had taken Rey in. Why they had agreed to take on a foster child Rey had never truly understood; she’d been a brittle thing, all hard edges, startled and wary, at first, of the warmth the Tico family provided. Slowly, she had come to find a friend, a sister, in Rose. 

And for someone who had survived through loss after loss after loss, had so many things taken away from her, this friendship, this chance, had brought her closer to the highs and lows of family in a way she had never truly known. 

Sure, as a child Rey hadn’t imagined that her future family’s home-cooking would ever have quite so many chilies involved, but the Tico family were the best people she knew, and she adjusted quickly, eagerly, to what a home-cooked meal, made with love and care, could be like. It had been a good lesson, the thought that sometimes, you have to be open to life going another direction, and being better than you ever could've dreamed.

But maybe… just a little bit… Rey ached, as all people do, for the kind of connection that sometimes seemed to come so effortlessly to happy couples. Rose and Finn never seemed to fight. Granted, Rey thought, she wasn’t often around them, because Finn was always at work… but he doted on her, loved her. It was clear to anyone with functioning eyes. 

Rey had sworn off dating in college. That was just a matter of practicality. 

And yet, as she made her way back to her cozy little bedroom, and resisted the urge to flop down, face-first, onto her plain white cloud of a duvet, Rey wished she could have some of the benefits of a steady relationship. Not the dating, or the messiness, or the distraction. Just the occasional companionship. 

Someone to talk to, when she got lonely. 

Someone who would listen, just listen. They'd try to help or offer advice if she asked, but they'd be there for her, steady and dependable. They'd never leave.

Right about now, and for the foreseeable future, the warmest embrace she was likely to find the shower. 

Maybe after graduate school, though. Rey would have time, eventually. 

As she lathered up, and scrubbed the scent of stale beer and ancient cigars out of her hair, Rey found herself thinking about a pair of dark eyes, a waistband slung low on flat, toned hips, the dusting of dark hair that led down to the promise of abundant riches, and that _body_ , and—

 _Stop it,_ she thought. 

* * *

On Friday, Ben was only a minute late to class, much to Rey’s relief. He brought in a paper as well, and handed it in on top of Rey’s. Dr. Holdo tucked the papers safely away in a manila envelope, and began the lecture on their next play, _Much Ado About Nothing._

And things were… fine. 

Rey worked all weekend, and when she got back to her apartment, Rose was out, with a note left on the fridge that she was hanging out with Finn. That made it easy to focus on her homework, which was substantial, and not just for the Shakespeare class. It should’ve made it easy to distract herself from thinking about Ben. Emphasis on _should’ve_. 

But then Monday rolled around. And Rey sat down in her assigned seat, and turned her paper over, and—

“A C minus?” Rey said, incredulous and beyond disappointed. She looked over at Ben, who had just turned over his own paper. “What did you get?”

He shrugged, gave her a slightly apologetic look, and showed her. 

Rey gaped at him. “How in the world did you manage an A when you slept through one of the classes?”

Before Ben could form a reply, Dr. Holdo began class. 

“Alright, settle down. Now, some of you might be a bit surprised at your papers. I saw some good analysis out there, but there’s also a lot of room for improvement.”

Rey quickly did the math: There were five plays on the syllabus, and one collection of sonnets. Five little essays, and a midterm, and a final, comprised the forty percent of her grade… She had to do better, straight away, if she was going to earn an A in this class. 

Her stomach twisted. 

This was not good, and she couldn’t blame it on Ben at all. For someone who was used to being consistently exceptional in her field of study, it was a humbling thought, one which made Rey feel as if she had acted stupidly self-important. In fact, he’d effortlessly done better than she had… _How?_

Her mind spun back to that moment they’d shared, reading the scene together. Instead of feeling awe and respect, however, her gut twisted. She’d had to work so hard for everything, and to have someone just come in and take it—

No, that wasn’t fair. He wasn’t getting an A on purpose simply to frustrate her. He’d simply done better work than her. Rey took a slow breath and forced herself to focus. But she needed this grade, and her inner competitive streak was tugging at the bonds into which she had shackled it. 

“Today, we’ll be covering the second half of _Much Ado_ today, acts three through five,” Dr. Holdo said. “Now, one of the themes of this play is honor. Manly honor, feminine honor. In the play, what is the primary element of female honor?”

Someone else in the class chimed in: “Chastity?”

 _“O Hero,”_ Dr. Holdo recited, her voice languid and lovely: “ _what a Hero hadst thou been, if half thy outward graces had been placed about thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart! But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! Farewell, thou pure impiety and impious purity! For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love, and on my eyelids shall conjecture hang, to turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, and never shall it more be gracious_. What is Claudio saying here?”

A few students volunteered their thoughts, and Rey looked over at Ben. He caught her eye, and gave her a little smile. Something warm and soft melted down her spine at the sight of it. 

His dimples could definitely lead a girl to defile herself in an open window.

Something of Rey’s chained-up Id rattled ominously against her better nature. 

“But there’s an interesting allusion here as well,” Dr. Holdo continued. “Claudio says, _‘What a Hero hadst thou been,’_ and he’s not only referring to the ideal version of Hero who has been build up in his mind, or the ideal concept of heroic female chastity, but the greek myth of Hero. Anyone familiar with it?”

Rey, and presumably the rest of the class, shook her head. Ben, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, merely looked back down at his book. 

 _Of course you know,_ Rey seethed. She wanted to slap the gentle expression off of his face. Make him the villain of her narrative. Push him and prod him until she could feel the weight of his gaze. Simply to know the truth of what she was up against, of course. 

“The maiden, Hero, was a priestess of Aphrodite, paradoxically a sworn virgin in service to the goddess of love. Leander, a young man, fell in love with her, and would swim out across the channel to her island, to woo her and, eventually, to make love to her. But they were caught, of course, and punished. So Claudio compares _his_ Hero to the _ideal_ Hero, and to the Hero of myth...”

Something sharp pinched between Rey’s brows; all this heroism was threatening to permanently embed an inspirational Mariah Carey ballad in her head. It was definitely _not_ giving her the strength to carry on.

Dr. Holdo continued, and Rey did her best to keep up. Her notes were dense and copious by the end of class, but she was no more certain of her grade on the next paper the more she looked at them. It was like something essential was missing. Some connecting piece that her mind couldn’t quite fathom. She could pull apart a circuit in her mind, do all kinds of equations, and yet this, some story, was maddeningly remote, even now. 

She looked back at Ben. Yet again, there was nothing but the book in front of him. 

Yet again, his gaze made her feel prickly and warm and aware. 

And Rey got an idea. 

* * *

“Ben, can I… ask you for a favor?”

Her voice was soft, but Ben could hear it over the noise of the other students as they all packed up at the end of class. She was wearing a navy blue crewneck sweater today, the sleeves rolled up twice to fit her smaller frame; it made Ben wonder whose sweater it was—a boyfriend’s? Hopefully an ex-boyfriend’s. He had the sudden absurd desire to see her in one of his shirts instead, but that thought was tinted with a strange shade of regret, because it brought to mind the handful of times other women had thought to steal his own shirts, the mornings after his various escapades. But while they had done it to entice him, Rey was simply existing. In a sweater. Which wasn’t his, and he shouldn’t allow himself to be so distracted when she was trying to have a conversation with him.

“Sure,” he said, setting his bag back down on the top of the desk. “What is it?”

“You’re… good at this stuff,” Rey said, with a downcast look that, on anyone else, Ben might have called abashed. “I’m not.”

“You’re not bad at this,” he said, but Rey shook her head. 

“This isn’t my strong suit. And I thought you…” she sighed, and hugged her books closer to her chest, still looking down at the desk. “Anyway. You understand it. I was wondering if, maybe…”

“You want my help?” Ben hadn’t meant for the words to come out so loud, or meant for her to look up at him, embarrassed, with narrowed eyes. 

“You don’t have to rub it in,” she said. 

“No, no, I’m not, I’d be happy to help…” Ben smiled at her. “But… I might need a favor, in return.”

* * *

“Whites go together, darks in their own load as well, and any delicates need a different setting,” Rey said, tugging open the strings of her own plain canvas laundry bag, down in the basement laundry room of her and Rose’s apartment. Beside her, Ben had a basket that looked newly purchased; it was filled with jeans, shirts… underwear…

Rey blushed, and turned back to her own sorting. 

“You probably think this is ridiculous,” he said, over the hum of the first load Rey had started in one of the eight machines. “A grown man who doesn’t know how to do his laundry.”

Rey smiled. “Don’t worry. I think all of you is ridiculous, and not just this.”

She cast a look back over her shoulder, and saw that he was smiling as well. 

“And you can learn, so…” Rey heaved a bundle of towels into the machine, and added a portion of soap. “Did your mother do your laundry for you all these years?”

At this, Ben laughed out loud, and shook his head. “No. She’s definitely not the laundry type.”

“Ah.” Rey didn’t fill in the rest of her conjecture, which was that a guy like him probably had a long string of girlfriends who did his laundry. Tall, buxom, blonde, beautiful girlfriends, who fucked like porn stars and cooked like chefs… Not that she cared about his dating history, that is. It was just a theory. 

“Just one pod?” Ben asked. He’d sorted his darks and lights into two washing machines, and now looked down at the container of laundry soap that Rey had brought to share with him. 

“You can use one or two, depending on how dirty you are,” Rey said, before hastily amending: “How dirty your clothing is.”

Ben’s eyes flickered to hers, then back to the pods, without comment. He selected one each for his two loads, then closed the lids, staring down at the knobs. 

“Okay, now what?”

Rey closed her own lid and started her load of towels before coming over to his machines. Up close, she could smell his spicy, subtle scent, even over the smell of laundry detergent and dryer sheets. It wasn’t that he was overpowering, or wore too much cologne, she just… responded to him. To his nearness. A wicked part of her thought, as she leaned over to show him the various settings, how lovely and nice it would be to just keep bending over the washing machine, feel him come up behind her, touch her…

“And this is, um, the timer,” Rey said, once she’d pushed the _Start_ button. “You can see how much time you have left before you have to move them over to the dryer.”

“Got it,” he said. 

Rey turned back around to the realization that he was still standing close behind her. Not in a creepy, possessive way, but… if he had lowered his arms, placed his hands to either side of her on the washing machine, he could cage her in perfectly. 

He didn’t. 

 _Idiot,_ Rey thought, at herself. Behind them both, washing machines churned their rhythmic, sloshing tumble. Not exactly the romantic backdrop of her dreams. And he wasn’t the man of her dreams, either. Not by a long shot. 

But still…

Rey cleared her throat, and centered her gaze on the middle of his chest instead of allowing his eyes to hold her captive. Staring at his chest wasn’t much better than his face, because then her brain helpfully conjured the image of him shirtless, and that was… problematic. 

Ben took an obliging step back. 

“Why are you here?” Rey blurted, giving over to the other impulse that wasn’t ‘drag him down by his collar and taste his mouth.’

“Here?” he replied. “In the laundry room?”

“No, I mean… at university.”

“I’m finishing my degree,” he said. And it almost sounds like he’s reminding himself, convincing himself. 

“What degree?”

“History. You?”

“Engineering.”

Rey had told enough men her major to anticipate the response to this, but when she looked up into his eyes, there wasn’t a hint of condescension or disbelief. Just a bit of amusement.

“What?”

“Just making a mental note of what degree I should switch to so I can figure these things out,” Ben said, with a nod to the washers and dryers. A dimple makes itself known just beside one of his many moles. 

Rey had to laugh. “You don’t need a degree to figure these out. They’re not Shakespeare.”

“Speaking of which,” Ben said, and he tugged his backpack closer, pulling out his own copy of _Much Ado About Nothing_ and flipping through to a seemingly-random page. “We have twenty-something minutes to wait before we dry it all, right?”

“And all of a sudden, you’re a serious student,” Rey replied. “Are you sure you didn’t eat a Tide Pod when I wasn’t looking? I don’t have mine...”

He was just standing there, looking stupid and handsome, in their tiny little laundry room… Those black jeans, that slightly too-tight t-shirt, the big boots, all of him was on a scale as if nature herself had taken a regular man and just made him at 110% on a cosmic copier. Maybe 120%. It was truly unfair, the response he provoked inside of her. She needed to get her shit together, and fast. Because as much as her dumb body wanted him, her brain knew he was nothing but trouble. Had been, from the very start. 

“The essay topics… which one were you going to pick?”

“I hadn’t really considered,” Rey said. “But probably not the one about concealing and revealing language.”

“Oh?”

She smiled at him. “Engineering doesn’t have subtext. So it’s not exactly my strong suit. I’ll probably do the one on gender roles. That’s a bit closer to home...”

“Hmm,” Ben said. He looked down at the book in his hands, and flipped to a seemingly-random page. “Here.”

Rey hesitated. Then, she took the book, feeling the brush of his hand against hers as the narrow paperback slipped into her hands.

She looked up into his eyes. Then, he spoke, voice deepening and growing softer: _“Lady Beatrice. Have you wept all this while?”_

Rey looked down at the page, her stomach suddenly rising into her throat. _“Yea, and I will weep a while longer.”_

_“I will not desire that.”_

Rey suppressed a shiver at the sound of his voice. _“You have no reason; I do it freely.”_

_“Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.”_

“How in the world did you memorize this?” Rey asked him, incredulous, and more than a small portion turned on. 

“Read,” was his only answer. 

Rey looked back down at the page. _“Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!”_

_“Is there any way to show such friendship?”_

_“A very even way, but no such friend.”_

_“May a man do it?”_

Rey glared up at him, as if Beatrice’s anger had merged and fused with her own. “It is a man's office, but not yours.”

Ben opened his mouth at this, but… it was as if the words wouldn’t come. Rey looked down at the next line:

 

>   _BENEDICK: I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?_

“Do you… want to get something to eat,” he said, shaking off whatever it was that had briefly possessed him, made him sound noble and regal and good. “While the loads run?”

“Sure,” Rey said, nerves still racing up and down her skin from their brief exchange. She closed the book, and handed it back to him. “There’s a… um, a deli…”

Ben nodded. For a moment, there was a look on his face that Rey couldn't even hope to decipher. Then, the expression shifted, like clouds parting after a rainstorm, and he gave her a soft smile as he slung his bag over his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

It was only later, far later, as they split a really quite delicious Reuben sandwich and a cup of Hungarian mushroom soup each, that Rey finally was startled to understand. Perhaps he shared that sense of longing that Rey felt, thinking about Rose and Finn, and happy, easy relationships, and having someone know your thoughts before you spoke them. Perhaps he felt that too. But she didn't dare say as much; he was only barely reformed, and only because of their mutually-beneficial classroom-laundry negotiations. So she ate her sandwich, and got a cup to put the remainder of the soup in, and kept her thoughts to herself. 

When they came back to the laundry, it was done. 

He thanked her; Rey waved it off with some halfhearted warning about throwing one single red sock in with his whites if he slept through class again, and was rewarded, not with scowling, but with a brilliant smile. 

A smile she carried with her long after he'd left. 

A smile she carried with her, even as she closed her eyes that night, and lay in bed, and tried to think of something, anything else. 

* * *

In his dorm room that night, laying on the thin, vaguely crackly mattress, Ben looked up at the ceiling. 

It was near enough to him, here on the top bunk, that he could count every hole in the ceiling tile. Familiarize himself with the faint water stain in the corner of one tile that looked alarmingly like Norway. 

He couldn't get Rey out of his head. 

What the hell was he even doing here; he was wasting his time. University, his solitary course, which (Mitaka had helpfully, stammeringly informed him) did not actually count towards any kind of completion of his prior degree, due to some logistical problem between international university credit systems that Ben didn't give a shit about. Yet again, he was wasting his time. His body thrummed with unspent energy, even as Mitaka and Hux slept on, their snores alternating like some kind of weird ritualistic tree-felling competition. 

Ben put his hands behind his head in an effort to fluff up the flat pillow a little more, and shifted his hips beneath the blanket. 

For so long, his goals had been simple. Even simplistic. Right now, he wanted to get in a car, an expensive car, and drive it as fast as possible. Find some country road weaving out through the forests that surrounded this place and take the hairpin turns at a speed that would get him wrapped around a tree. He wanted to fuck; his cock was already hard, aching to be touched, but though he had jacked off in stranger places, he couldn't bring himself to move his hand down into the waistband of his pajama pants and address the situation. But he ran through several scenarios on that front, too. 

The girls he saw on campus: Pretty, some beautiful, lithe and lean or tall and curved, he didn't care. Things he could do to them, with them. Words he could say, to get one or two to take him back to their place. It was easy. Not to say the girls were easy, but this was college; everyone expected a bit of extracurricular amusement, now and again. 

He didn't want to. That was the crux of the problem. The reason for his straining, insistent erection. 

There were other things he could do, too. Other substances he could take, to dull the pain of being a disappointment, which he was. Other things to smoke or snort or drop on his tongue and use to forget for a little while who he was, what he was. 

But the way Rey had looked at him...

_Is not that strange?_

Ben shuddered, and squeezed his eyes shut. 

He didn't want a fast car, or the sudden stop at the very end that he sometimes craved. 

He didn't want to get high, and to forget. 

He didn't want someone who was tall and blonde...

Even in the darkness, the truth blazed inside of him like a light. 

All he wanted was her. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

The facts of the matter were this:

Rey was positively drowning in her classes. Her Civil Engineering class was pushing her harder than she’s ever had to study before, her professor for her Urban Development course had added on field work and interviews and it’s so much more of a time-suck than Rey’s planned for, and her Soil Mechanics class is…

Well. That one’s actually quite interesting, and she’s familiar with the professor, but it’s just… it’s a lot. 

And she was drowning. 

When they’d run models on peat-block buildings and clay-soil berms and see what kind of structures can function under stress, Rey felt as if she’s under a torrent of water as well. A veritable academic deluge. One she had willingly signed up for. 

Doubting her choice of profession and field of study had become a near-hourly occurrence for her, and she dragged herself through the motions at work, hiding her textbooks under the counter and hoping nobody sees, or cares. Her color-coded and lovingly-indexed notes from the beginning of the term had rapidly degenerated into a scrawl, and her tired eyes feel like they’ve been filled with sand, like she needed a proper eye exam because they were starting to get so strained from late nights and poor lighting she might be doing actual damage. 

Rose had come into the apartment late once and woken Rey up from where she’d face-planted into her notes. 

“Mm hafta save the world, Rose,” Rey had replied, in response to her roommate’s prodding. 

“Oh, right, because you’re going to single-handedly reverse climate change,” Rose had said, helping Rey to her bed and sort of lovingly shoving her towards it. “Can’t do that if you don’t sleep…” 

Worst of all, naturally, is the Shakespeare course. 

This is for several reasons: 

One: It’s difficult, and not in the way her other courses are difficult. Her other courses are the kind of upper-division things that are meant to be challenging because of how specific they are. And they are challenging, but they’re also the culmination of her four years of study in the field, steadily narrowing down her focus, so she knows she’s conquered them before, and can do it again. This one is so out of her realm of understanding it might as well be upper-division Greek. 

Two: She’s stressed about having to get all of her recommendations and associated forms turned in, and another professor hasn’t returned her inquiries, and she doesn’t have the faintest clue who she’ll ask after if she can’t get one in time 

Three: She’s not really sleeping well, and that seems to be mostly because of all of the above, but it doesn’t help that when she closes her eyes all she can see is—

Four: Ben Solo. 

He’s disrupting her already precious amount of sleep, and Rey is positive he has no idea. Of course he has no idea; it’s not like they have some sort of… mind connection thing, not like he’s projecting his thoughts into her head. If he was, she’d probably be getting better grades. Still, she was exhausted, and couldn’t help but take it out on him. Twice, now, she’d helped him with his laundry. The first time, he’d pulled _Much Ado_ out of his ass in a way that made Rey feel shivery and jealous and stunned and more than a little bit horny. Which was a weird combo, his ass and Shakespeare, but.. Whatever. It was a mess of emotions—Ben’s presence had a way of turning her into a mess of emotions, Shakespeare (or his ass) be damned. 

And now she was here, at the end of her fifth week of class, with midterms barrelling down on her, the waters of stress and overwork and sleeplessness rising by the minute. 

It might’ve been easier if he had been terrible, she thought, sitting next to Ben in class as he had the unmitigated audacity to wear a burgundy polo shirt that looked both expensive and a half-size too small for his ridiculous, wide body. 

With her help, his laundry got clean. 

With his, her last paper had earned a Solid B. Rey had grinned when she showed it to him, that day in class. He had smiled back. 

That smile had felt like a punch in the face. Or, more properly, a punch somewhere lower. His eyes had a way of—

“ _Hamlet_ ,” Dr. Holdo said, and Rey straightened up, just about dropping her pencil. “Characters who grapple with power, with control, and with the ultimate control: The control of the self. There are many ways that scholars have approached this play throughout history. They’ve approached it as a purely historical text, which we know, as a fictionalized narrative, can only take us so far. They’ve approached it in psychoanalytic terms, which certainly does lead down an interesting path with regard to the tension some productions, especially filmed productions, have added, with regard to the relationship between Hamlet and his mother. And in more recent eras, they’ve looked at it through the lenses of postmodern, queer, and feminist theory. But we’ll start with the basics. Like Macbeth, it’s classified as a tragedy. Like Macbeth, there are elements of magic and otherworldly happenings. But there are differences, too. What else do you notice about the play, on your first read?”

Rey looked down at her notes, writing down whatever it was she had heard and trying to look inconspicuous so as to avoid getting called on. She’d missed that part in the syllabus where Dr. Holo had asked that they read the whole play for Monday’s class, rather than half, and Rey had only made it to somewhere around “get thee to a nunnery” before falling asleep at her table. Thankfully, the professor didn’t choose her. 

She didn’t choose Ben, either. 

Rey glanced sideways at him, and saw that he also had his head down. Rey fumed. In the other classes, the ones she actually felt confident in, the ones which complimented her field of study and hopeful path for graduate school, she’d have her hand raised, her opinions at the ready. She’d have them backed up with findings and citations. But here it was all opinion. People able to see things that Rey just couldn’t perceive. 

Professor Holdo was responding to a student question; Rey, who had half tuned out at this point, doodled ‘Ophelia Deserved Better’ across the top of her paper. 

A prickle of awareness on the back of her neck made her look up, she caught Ben looking down at her notes, a curious half-smile on his face. His eyes met hers, and she smiled back. 

“Now, pair up, you know the drill…” Professor Holdo gestured to the class. “No reading today, but I want you to go over your thoughts about one of these four themes.”

Rey hastily copied down the themes from the board to her notebook, then slid her notes to the side, not out of view on purpose, but just to make space for her copy of the play, which was conspicuously marked with a bright neon-yellow post-it note to mark where she’d left off. 

“Sorry, I’m not…” Ben stifled a yawn, “It’s nothing personal.”

“Adjusting to dorm life after moving out of your palace?” Rey snapped at him. 

For a moment, Ben stiffened, then relaxed. 

“Yeah, something like that.” He gestured to her book. “Did you read the whole thing?”

“Did you?”

“I’ve read it before.” He shrugged. “I mean, saw it performed, couple of times.”

“Ah, and let me guess, you have this one memorized too.” Lord, she was inches away from just flipping the table over in rage and frustration. The stretch of that burgundy polo across his arms didn’t help in the slightest. 

He shook his head, but at least had the decency to look bashful about it. 

“I really don’t like this play,” Rey said, opening up her copy and frowning down at it. Unless it really turns itself around, Hamlet is the least likable character I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering. Yourself excluded.”

“Thanks?” Ben said. His brows drew together. 

Rey flushed under his gaze. “Sorry. I am just running short on sleep and unfortunately this class is low on my list of priorities.”

“Well, don’t expect me to carry you,” Ben said. His tone grew stern, almost imperious, and Rey gaped at him for a full breath before noticing the hint of a smile on his mouth. 

She thwapped him on the arm with her book. “Don’t make fun of me. I’m still not convinced you’re actually trying to graduate.”

“Why did you hate the play?” Ben asked her. Again, she noted: Deflecting. 

“Everyone is just so stupid, and none of them talk to each other, or tell the truth abot anything. Which I can understand if it’s the point of it all, but Hamlet is the worst.” Rey said, with a roll of her eyes. “What in the world does a _prince_ have to be whiny about? Everything is easy for him. He doesn’t have to struggle at all.”

“That’s not true.” Ben shook his head, making the waves of dark hair sway slightly against his handsome face. Not that Rey was looking at it, but just… she _noticed_ , that was all. She wasn’t _trying_ to, but he was… nice, she supposed. To look at. Not as a person. 

Challenged, she arched an eyebrow at him. “Oh? Enlighten me, then.” 

“His father is definitely murdered,” Ben countered, using one broad fingertip to slide her copy of the play over to his side of the desk. “Did you get to that part?”

“Yes, I got to that part.” Rey rolled her eyes, trying not to laugh. “But he’s whiny before then. What’s his deal?”

“Maybe he feels like… like his whole life has been organized for him,” Ben said, “without any thought to what _he_ actually wants. How would you feel if someone else made all of your choices for you? You’d feel trapped.”

“And I do,” Rey said. “Feel trapped, I mean. I’ve felt that way before. But that’s because the people who made choices for me made terrible ones. A prince would have… power, privilege. He’d have options, resources, in a way that most normal people would never have.”

“A gilded cage is still a cage.”

“Spare me the platitudes,” Rey said, rolling her eyes. “You can’t tell me that if _you_ were a prince, you’d just sit there and mope about it? You wouldn't... melt down the cage, pawn it, and chart your own course?”

“I see Mr. Solo and Miss Nieman are having another spirited discussion,” Professor Holdo said, from the front of the class. “Care to share your thoughts, you two?”

Ben looked up at her, biting back the reply he’d intended for Rey. He smiled that winning smile, a smile that went right into Rey’s veins. She glanced sideways at him, wondering whether he was going to answer their professor’s query first, or if she would be forced to mumble out a passable reply. 

For all that they had spent time over lunches and laundry, Rey didn’t really _know_ him. She knew how he smiled. How he laughed. 

She knew that he was determined to pay for their lunches, and had done so, every time. She knew that he had attempted to brave the student dining hall, once, and been so repelled by the food he’d left, and the way he had told that story made her laugh so hard she’d cried. She knew that he had a remarkable ability to read and retain plays, too. Like the way she was, with math, but… Different. 

Rey also had deduced that he wasn’t being entirely truthful about his motives, or his plans for college. As bad about subtext as she was, even she could sense that. He was such a contradiction. Capable and intelligent, yet clearly not affected by all of the typical anxieties plaguing most current and returning college students. Occasionally, he would slip in something about a place he had visited—Paris, London, Moscow—and Rey would perk up, eager to hear more. But then, just as quickly, he would close back off. 

She honestly didn’t know if it was an intentional thing, trying to make him seem more mysterious, or if it was truly accidental. But most of the time, he asked questions about her. What her life had been like—

_“You said you’d felt trapped, before,” he’d asked her, over a cup of the diner’s Hungarian mushroom soup, which was passably mushroom-y and only tenuously Hungarian, at least according to him. “What did you mean? People who had… made choices for you?”_

_—and Rey had told him. The story of it, at first. What she’d rehearsed, what she usually told people. But she’d quickly discovered, she couldn’t hide from his eyes. And she actually wanted to tell him the truth._

He’d listened. 

And now, the class was listening. 

“I think… power, and privilege, can be a double-edged sword,” Ben said carefully, as Dr. Holdo and the whole class listened in. “I think that sometimes, the things that seem like an advantage can be… isolating. Alienating. Sometimes the power you have isn’t a power that… can change anything. Hamlet has to try and communicate his pain in the only way he knows how.”

“Which is?” Dr. Holdo asked.

“Through performance,” Ben replied. 

Rey watched him, as he looked down at his hands on the desk. “He has been raised to perform, to carry on, despite what he feels inside. Because that’s what’s expected of him. Nobody thinks to look beyond the surface, beyond what they want to see.”

Dr. Holdo nodded. She turned her attention back to the class, and continued on with the lecture. But Rey was struck by the honest pain in his voice. 

She didn’t know him at all. 

But… she wanted to. Against all better reason and caution. 

And that was dangerous. 

* * *

“My next class is cancelled,” Rey said, as the two of them walked out of Dr. Holdo’s classroom together—no more pretending to pack up slowly, one to match the other. They were a pair now. Two fixed points in a stream of fellow students rushing past. 

Ben tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looked over at her. “Oh?” 

“Yeah, the professor sent out an email,” Rey said, tucking back a loose strand of her hair as she fell into step beside him. “Something about his parakeet being sick… but, if you needed to do your laundry, we could…”

“Sure, sure,” he said. “I’ll just go my, uh, my bag.”

He didn’t invite her up, but didn’t feel like stopping her when she followed him. When he got to the door of the room, however, he paused, and looked back at her. 

“My roommates are…” Ben trailed off, trying to search for the right words. 

“I’ve met your roommates,” Rey said. “One of them, anyway. Mitaka?”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Just… maybe you should wait outside.”

Rey nodded, and her eyes widened just a little. He could only imagine what she was thinking, what she expected to see. Ben opened the door, then, and went inside. If only his space had been consumed with the typical college-student nonsense, he thought. 

Instead, both he and Rey surveyed the disturbingly tidy space, and the odd rearrangement of the heavy study desks into the center of the room, two of them pushed back-to-back, topped with a massive chessboard. In chairs on opposite sides of it, staring intently at the board, were Mitaka, and Hux. They were taking turns slapping the timer on the table, making blindingly-quick moves; Hux had grown a rather majestic ginger beard, and his sport jacket had been replaced with a semi-rumpled polo shirt. Even Mitaka looked markedly less crisp and put-together than the last time Rey had seen him, most likely…

“What are they—?”

Both Mitaka and Hux shushed her, in unison; Hux moved his bishop to capture a pawn, and Mitaka retaliated, by capturing that same bishop with his knight. 

“Yeah,” Ben said mildly, with his laundry bag slung over his shoulder. “They’ve been like this since last week…”

“Oh… kay?” Rey replied, backing out of the doorway and into the hall. Ben followed, and shut the door behind him as he left. 

“Don’t ask me to explain it,” Ben said. 

Rey nodded. They went down the main hallway and out to the front door, passing a group of students coming inside, still clad in soccer-practice gear and talking animatedly with each other. 

“So, you never did say what other classes you’re taking this term,” Rey began, as they started their now-familiar walk from Crait Hall out to Rey’s apartment building. “You said one of them had been cancelled…”

Ben thought fast. Damn it, he _had_ said that, back at their first deli lunch together… and it had been a lie. He cleared his throat. “Just this one, for now.”

“Oh?” Rey looked up at him curiously. “Your degree is going to take forever at that point.”

He smiled. “Yeah. That’s true. But… I’ll figure it out. Eventually.”

Rey made a noncommittal noise as they walked. 

“What?”

“Must be nice,” Rey said. There was a shade to her voice, one he was beginning to associate with her not saying what was really on her mind. 

“What’s nice?”

“To have the time to just… figure things out.”

He barked out a laugh at this. “It doesn’t matter what I do.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because… it’s expected that I… take over the family business,” Ben said, carefully, as they negotiated their way around a pile of what looked like dropped tacos, and came up to the intersection; Rey jabbed the button for the crosswalk, and then came back beside him. “In a manner of speaking. So my degree doesn’t really matter.”

Her brows furrowed. “You wouldn’t want to get a degree that would be useful for the business?”

“It’s not always about what I want,” Ben replied, “and… I’m not sure there’s really a training for it, at the academic level. It’s pretty hands-on.”

“But wouldn’t they be proud of your success?” Rey asked. 

“They would be proud, but it just wouldn’t matter.” Ben gave her a tight smile. “I could get a degree in… basket-weaving, and my course would still be set. I have a commitment to the business that I can’t walk away from.”

“Hm,” Rey said. 

The crosswalk sign changed, and the two of them set out across the street, cars lining up and stopping for them. When he glanced to the side, seeing a car edging forward with impatience in the turn lane, Ben purposefully slowed down his long-legged stride. The car honked; he smiled at them. 

“What kind of business is your family in?” Rey said. “What kind of job?”

“Management,” Ben said. His voice was flat and as even as he could make it.

Ruling a country was kind of management. Sort of. 

They walked on, one block further to reach Rey’s red brick building. He opened the door for her, enjoying the way her flustered flush crept up the back of her neck when he did so. He could definitely get used to seeing that. 

* * *

Rey pondered Ben’s answers as they climbed the two flights of stairs, up to her apartment. She had the sense—who the hell knew where it had come from, or why she cared—that he was telling her only a half-truth. Maybe he was embarrassed by his time away from school, or didn’t want to tell her his family’s business. Maybe he feared she’d think less of him, if she knew what it really was. But Rey didn’t much care. 

There _was_ something in his bearing, in the way he moved and walked, that spoke of an almost military discipline, a formality—when he wasn’t lazing around. Rey couldn’t place it. 

“Let me grab my basket, it’ll just be one second,” she said, and went hastily down the hallway, turning into her room. Once there, she gathered together a bundle of things to wash, finding her pajamas where she’d tossed them this morning, tugged off her pillowcases too, and shoved them on top of the other clothes. 

When she came out, she was surprised to see Ben standing in her living room, looking intently at her little solar array, positioned in the window.

“Are these solar panels?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Rey said. She came over to stand beside him. “This was one of my first projects. I did all the soldering myself, which is why it looks like a mess.”

“It doesn’t look like a mess.”

His warm smile made her feel weak in the knees. Rey smiled back, and shook her head, looking down at what she knew was beginner work.

“It’s a wonder it still functions… I’ve learned a lot since this, though.”

“You could fix it,” he said softly. 

She could feel his gaze on her skin. 

“No,” Rey said, after a quiet moment passed—both of them, it seemed, still pretending as if they were looking at the soldering. 

“Why not?”

He was standing too close to her—too close, to smell so good and not be touching her. If he would only reach out, follow his gaze with the brush of his fingertips…

Rey nipped those impossible thoughts right in the bud. 

She didn’t dare look up into his eyes. “It reminds me of what’s important.”

“And what’s that?”

She swallowed, feeling dry-mouthed and tongue-tied. “Beginnings.”

* * *

With any other woman, Ben would’ve made his move. He would’ve tried to put his hands on her, tried to pull her close. 

He didn’t want that. 

Well—scratch that. He _did_ want that. He just didn’t want to take it. Take what hadn’t been offered. All those women he had been with, before… had he walked away from them, and left them hurt? Had they expected more of him, less of him? What had they wanted? He had no idea. He’d never really stopped to consider it. It had all been fun and games, until now… 

Until her. 

It wasn’t as if there was some great divide, either, between those women, and Rey. That was unfair, for everyone involved. Instead, he was shocked to realize that there had been a change in him. Standing in her tiny apartment, looking down at her handiwork, he was struck by the fact that she had made things, shaped them, crafted herself and her own future against crushing odds. 

Instead of running away from obligation, she charged it, made it her own. 

It humbled him.

Her spirit was indomitable, her tenacity was enthralling. He could no more reach out and crush that, bend her to his will, than he could crush her little circuit board. 

And she didn’t want him.

That was the worst part of all of it. Once his crown was stripped away, once he was just Ben, he didn’t stand a chance with someone like her. Class and social standing and privilege be damned; they couldn’t buy her, and he wouldn’t ever want to try. 

But Christ, how he wanted her. Moreover, he realized, as he followed her back down the stairs and towards the laundry room, he wanted to know what she did want. What could he show her to have a chance at seeing her smile for him, truly smile?

It wouldn’t matter, even if he found the answer to that. If his mother hadn’t approved of his other inconsequential dalliances back home, there was no way she’d ever approve of him returning with a woman like Rey. 

_She doesn’t even want to date you, idiot. Quit measuring her for a crown and be realistic..._

He was so intent on this, he almost didn’t see it when another woman backed out of the laundry room, and the two narrowly avoided a collision.

Ben sidestepped at the last moment.

“Oh!” the woman exclaimed, her arms around a massive lime-green basket, filled with folded clothes; she stepped back into the room as they entered. “Rey—is this—?”

“This is Ben,” Rey said, three little words that seemed to convey more meaning than Ben could immediately deduce. She turned to look up at him. “Ben, this is Rose, my roommate.”

“Hello,” he said. 

“Hi,” Rose replied. She was still looking up at him, then back to Rey, like there was something else he was supposed to say, or do. 

 _Shit,_ he thought. _Does she recognize me?_

“We’re just...” Rey began, setting her own laundry down on the central folding table. “He’s in Crait, and you know how awful the laundromat is up there…”

“Oh,” Rose said, still holding her basket in front of her like a shield. “Uh huh, yeah…”

“It’s not, like…” Rey said, hastily, before shutting herself up. _What_ wasn’t it like? 

And now, Ben understood. He fought to keep the smile off of his face. It was clear that Rey had spoken to her roommate about him before… and oh, wouldn’t he have loved to have been a fly on the wall for _that_ conversation. Perhaps his initial assessment that she wasn’t interested was slightly incorrect. He put his own bag down on the table, and began pulling out his laundry. Whites, darks. Colored items… There wasn’t that much to wash this week. 

As they stood there, another one of the building’s residents came in, ignoring whatever was happening—or wasn’t happening—with the three of them, and opening up one of the washers, starting to put his clean, wet load into the nearby dryer. 

When Ben looked back over at Rose and Rey, they seemed to be in the middle of a silent, furious discussion; as soon as Rose caught him looking, she clammed up, and gave him a smile. 

“There are only two open right now,” Rey said. “We can just…” 

“Hey, Ben,” Rose said, still hovering by the door, a grin growing on her face. “What are your plans for Thanksgiving?”

Briefly disarmed by the suggestion that his whites might have the possibility of tumbling around with Rey’s delicates—his damn clothing was getting more action than he was—Ben didn’t quite know how to respond. Thanksgiving… they didn’t have that in Alderaan, but there was a great harvest festival, and the opening of the holiday markets, he’d love to take Rey to see it—

“Nothing,” he said, still sorting, still feeling both Rey and Rose’s inquisitive stares on his skin. “Staying here.”

“You don’t have _any_ family to go home to?” Rose said, with what Ben thought was a rather pointed look at Rey. “Huh.”

“Would you like to come spend Thanksgiving with me?” Rey hastily said. “With… us, I mean. I—the Ticos…”

Ben felt a smile curl on his face, a feeling that was some new, unfamiliar shade of fondness and amusement warming his veins. Flustering her brought color to her cheeks, and it really wasn’t too difficult to formulate a picture of the flush of her arousal. It started at her cheeks, then spread down her throat to brush the edge of her collarbones. Would it keep going, all the way down, between her breasts? Did she blush when she was aroused, when someone played with her? He'd like to know—very much so.

Instead, he cleared his throat, growing aware that a laundry room wasn’t the ideal place to get an erection.

“Yes,” he said. “I’d like that.”

Rose smiled. 

Rey smiled too. 

And Ben had no earthly idea what it was he'd signed up for. 


	7. Chapter 7

The ride out to the Tico homestead, such as it was, passed by relatively uneventfully. It was only about an hour and a half away from campus, and Rose and Rey took turns behind the wheel. Ben sat up in the front seat while Rey drove, and when the time came to trade spots, muttered something about a ‘change of scenery’ and followed Rey into the back seat. Knowing Rose was keeping an eye on them, Rey startled when Ben reached quietly across the bench seat, letting his hand set down gently beside hers. Close enough so that just the edges of their little fingers could touch, but nothing more. 

It was… innocent. Strangely erotic. Purposeful? She couldn’t tell. And here wasn’t the place to ask. 

She liked it, whatever it was. 

But she didn’t understand it. 

Rey felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was on his very best behavior, with no trace of the utter asshole he’d been when they first met—when he’d first earned that beer to the face. He didn’t clasp her hand, and she didn’t return the gesture. But she didn’t move away from him, either. 

They rolled to a stop and got out just as the sun was starting to go down, illuminating the heavens horizon to horizon in peach and gold and amber against a soft, deepening blue sky. Mr. and Mrs. Tico were there on the front porch, and they stood up as soon as Rose pulled into the long, gravel drive. 

Rey’s life had been less than ideal, to put it mildly, before she’d come to meet the Tico family. Both Mr. and Mrs. Tico were veterinarians, running their own successful practice and keeping acreage for rescued animals out back. Both had been immigrants from Vietnam, with Mr. Tico coming over at age ten with his mother and sisters, and Mrs. Tico coming over at nineteen, to go to college. They’d met and bonded over animal rescue. Rey loved them to death, and felt that they were the closest thing to parents she was ever likely to find. 

As he stood up, on the other side of Rose’s car, Rey felt a sudden flutter of nerves. Would he like the Ticos? Would they like  _ him _ ? Was he going to behave himself? What would they think? He wasn’t her boyfriend, or anything, but surely, they were going to assume… this was the first time she’d done anything remotely close to bringing a boy home, even though it wasn’t like that at all. Surely they’d give him a chance—give  _ her _ a chance to explain what it was...

Rose called out to her parents, and they embraced her, and Rey, in turn. Then they looked at Ben. 

“Ben, this is Huệ Tico and Thuần Tico, my… foster-parents, and Rose’s parents.” The former wasn’t, strictly speaking, correct any longer, as Rey was an emancipated adult, and the latter was patently obvious, because she’d said it before. Nervous chatter, that was what it sounded like. 

The Ticos smiled politely up at Ben, clearly appraising him. 

Rey held her breath. 

“Mr. Tico, Mrs. Tico,” Ben said, shaking their hands in turn as they looked up at him. “A pleasure to meet you. Thank you for extending the invitation into your home.”

Mrs. Tico smiled up at him like someone had just given her a basket of puppies, shaking his hand. “Well, isn’t this one tall and good-looking! Rey, where did you find him?”

Ben blushed out to his ears at this, and Rey hoped that a sinkhole would open up beneath both of their feet and drag her down; she shook her head with a smile. “He’s just a classmate.”

“ _ Just _ a classmate?” Mr. Tico replied, a knowing look in his eyes. 

“Yes,” Rey said, doing her best to firmly avert any further questioning.

Huệ’s smile broadened. Thuần stepped closer, and shook Ben’s hand, and Huệ followed suit. 

“Wonderful to meet a _classmate_ of Rey’s,” Huệ said, while Rey suppressed a groan. 

 “Let’s go inside, it’s so cold out here,” Rey said, hoping she wasn't blushing, damning herself for being so obvious, and grateful that Ben didn't comment on it. 

And so the five of them went up the front porch stairs, and into the house. 

Inside, in the little front entryway which was two steps lower than the main floor, Rey turned back to tell Ben to take his shoes off. But he was already doing it, adding his oversized black boots neatly beside her own trainers on the lower shelf, looking up at her, smiling as he caught her staring. 

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Rey, I have a few more minutes before dinner is ready,” Mrs. Tico called out, trading her shoes for a pair of well-loved house slippers. “Why don’t you show Ben up to his room? We made up the bed in the office for him.”

“Alright,” Rey said. And then, with a faint huff of amusement only for his ears, she looked back at Ben. Unspoken in the ‘office’ comment was that, whether or not they thought Rey and Ben were dating, there was to be no bed-sharing shenanigans under their roof. 

“This way,” Rey said, and gestured to the half-flight of stairs to the right of the entry, which led up to the bedrooms. 

Ben followed. 

Down the upper hallway, there was a bathroom immediately on the left, which Rey pointed out to him with little commentary. A closet, opposite it, got a quick ‘this is where the extra blankets and pillows are, if you need them,’ before they moved on down the carpeted hall. 

The next door on the right was the office. Rey stepped inside, and Ben looked down at the extended futon, which had been covered in clean baby-blue sheets, an eggplant-purple velour blanket, and a double wedding ring quilt in an array of what looked like bits of plaid shirts. The corner of the bedding had been turned back, and there was a nightstand beside it, and a desk up under the window. 

“Hopefully you’ll fit in here,” Rey said. 

“I’ll make it work,” he replied. “I suppose I shouldn’t ask which one is your room.”

Rey rolled her eyes, but smiled. “It’s right across the hall.”

So he followed her over. 

“This is me,” she said, unnecessarily. 

Ben stepped inside her bedroom, and when he looked around, Rey felt herself shiver. It was like his every glance peeled back a layer she hadn’t even known she’d built. Until he saw, somehow, to the very heart of her. This too-tall man who seemed to be taking up all the air in her childhood bedroom. His dark gaze made her feel breathless, examined, appraised. It churned up feelings, low in her gut, for which Rey had no name.

And the contrast between him—everything new, the strange feeling of potential she felt, every time he looked at her—and her past—the mementos of her life with the Tico family, the dreams she’d dared to put to paper—was thrilling, and heady, and Rey felt pinned to the spot. It was only the noise from the kitchen which snapped her out of it. She cleared her throat, and sat down on the bed. 

* * *

“So, you get to see all of the embarrassing remnants of my teenage self,” Rey said. 

“It’s not embarrassing,” Ben said, surveying her room. He took in the wood desk pushed up against the wall, the stacks of books on the shelves above it, the posters—botanical illustrations, beside star maps and nebulae—and the jewelry box on the desk. The space was warm, comfortable, personal. It had clearly been personalized with love and attention. 

The map on the wall above her bed caught his eye; he took a step closer. “What are these?”

“Red are for places I’ve been, green are places I want to go.” Rey sat up on her knees, turning to look at it as well. “I haven’t been that many places… But one day, I hope to have enough money to travel.”

Ben couldn’t help it. There, on the map, his eyes were drawn towards Alderaan. 

_ Home, _ he thought. But it wasn’t a painful reminder. More of a yearning. 

Strange. 

That felt different from before. He hadn't even thought about home, about his mother, for some time, but now, he wondered if she was okay, or if she still looked as weary, as disappointed, as she had when he'd left. 

He looked away from the map before she caught him staring. This place was cozy and welcoming, so unmistakably  _ her _ . Even though his bedroom had been three times this size, in a palace older than this country’s history… this room, this home, was comforting like a familiar blanket. But if he kept thinking of comfort, then he’d be back to thinking about the tiny brush of contact she’d allowed in the car. The brush of finger against finger. Christ, not too long ago he’d be two fingers deep in her in the back seat of a car, not blushing like a virgin at the thought of just touching her. 

But this was Rey. He didn’t want to use her and cast her aside. He wanted her to want him, just as he was. 

Even he knew that was more than he dared to hope for. 

“What do you want to do,” he said, forcing himself away from that dark line of thinking, “when you get to all these places? See the sights?”

“I want to help bring clean energy to communities that could really benefit from it,” Rey replied. “Most of them aren’t really sightseeing destinations.”

Unconsciously, Ben trailed his finger across one of the red-tipped pins. “But you do want to travel.”

“Well… yes.” Rey seemed to be considering her words, if the little, thoughtful frown was any indication. “I’d love to see the world, as much of it as I can. But I also want to make a difference—going to places where I’m not just… building new toys, for the rich and powerful to play with. I want to go to the places where the world just looks the other way.”

“That’s very… noble of you.”

Rey looked back over at him.

“I mean,” he amended, “that’s a very worthy goal. Not many people would willingly go to places like that.”

“ _ To whom much is given, much is expected,”  _ Rey quoted back to him, a blush warming her cheeks. 

Ben’s eyebrows went up, and he tucked his hands into his pockets. “You religious?”

Rey shook her head. “Not particularly… it’s just something Rose’s dad says.”

“Ah.”

“But I think it’s true. I wasn’t given much in this life. Near as I can tell, I was surrendered at a fire station. I never had a real family, just bounced around the system until the Ticos took me in. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t at least try to do the right thing for someone else?”

Ben’s throat worked as he swallowed. She was close, now—close enough that she could see the tints of amber and caramel in his dark eyes. 

“You know,” he said, voice low and soft, “this is the first time in my life I’ve met someone who intimidates me.”

Rey laughed at this, and shook her head. “I’m not intimidating.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m not. I’m just…”

“You’re you,” Ben said. “Surely you have to be aware of the… effect you have on people.”

“People?” 

“Mmhmm.” 

Rey was still kneeling on her bed; Ben was standing close. All she’d have to do is rise up a little, and then he could lean down. A kiss was waiting for them in the middle.

Ben’s faze darted down to her softy-parted mouth. Rey sank back down onto her heels, the moment broken; she shifted, bringing her curled-up legs to the side as she tugged something out from under the floral-print pillow. 

He looked down at the stuffed… something… in her arms. “What is that?”

“This is Porg,” she replied, showing the strange brown-tan-orange bird-thing to him with all the grandeur of introducing him to a respected member of parliament. “I’m pretty sure he was supposed to be a puffin.”

“Ah,” Ben said. Then, he swept into a formal bow. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Porg.”

Rey laughed. She made the floppy, bedraggled thing bend at the waist in response. “How do you do, your royal worshipfulness?”

Something in her words pierced him, but Ben didn’t let it show. Instead, he sat down on the bed beside her, basking in her smile.

“I like you like this.”

“Like what?” Rey let the stuffed animal rest in her lap.

“Just like this.” 

* * *

Despite the fact that his mother isn’t a Vietnamese-American veterinarian, there was something regal, warm, and familiar about Mrs. Tico that reminded him fiercely of his own mother. 

Ben was on his best behavior the whole time, a fact that seemed to contribute to Rey’s slow but eventual relaxation as the meal progressed. Considering how he’d acted when they’d first met, he couldn’t blame her. How much more poorly would she think of him if she knew who he really was. And that moment, in her bedroom… it had been so innocent, so fraught and yet so sweet. 

They shared a meal together, one that was rich and delicious and cooked with love. Rose's parents laughed and joked with each other, their tones familiar, as they passed dishes around, urged him to take seconds, thirds, as much as he wanted. There was enough cooked for at least twenty people, and most of it was unfamiliar, but all of it was delicious. 

He thanked Rose’s mother profusely for the meal, and stood to carry in his own stacked dishes, and Rey’s, to the kitchen, before Rey could even protest. But once he got there, Mr. Tico waved him away from the sink with a smile on his face.

“Don’t worry about it, young man,” he said. “Rey, why don’t you give him a tour of the farm?”

Mr. Tico smiled a little too knowingly as he suggested it. 

Rey blushed, and looked up at Ben. “Do you want a tour? It’s getting dark, we can—”

“I’d love it,” he said.  _ If it means I can get you all to myself, then yes, take me anywhere... _

“Maybe just out to the barn,” Rey replied. “Hope you don’t mind getting a bit of mud on your shoes.”

Ben smiled, and made a ‘lead the way’ gesture towards the door. 

He didn’t mind getting dirty. Rather preferred it, depending on the circumstances. 

* * *

Outside, the air was crisp and cool, and the oncoming night had the added bonus of hiding her furious blush. They tromped out across the gravel, over to the barn. The horses would be in for tonight, and the ones that weren’t sleeping poked their heads up over the doors to investigate the newcomers.

“Hello, Bee,” Rey couldn’t stop herself from crooning at the familiar, inquisitive orange-and-white pinto that appeared in the first stall. “Hello, sweetheart, I missed you as well.”

The horse seemed to be a playful, spirited thing; Ben watched as it nosed at Rey’s shoulder, then her palm, when she had no treats to give. It glanced at Ben, who stepped a little closer.

Rey looked up at him as she pet the mare’s nose. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”

Ben had taken his first riding lesson at the age of five; his first riding outfit was housed in the national museum—doeskin breeches, a little blue jacket... He tried not to laugh at the wonderful absurdity of someone asking him that question. He nodded. “Yeah. Few times.”

Rey softened at this. “What’s funny?”

He shook his head. A few other horses had popped up to greet them. “Are all of these rescues?”

“Most, I think,” she replied. “A few are new, since I’ve been away. They adopted at least one from a neighbor when she couldn’t take care of him.”

Ben looked down the row of stalls, taking in the obvious signs of cleanliness and care, even in the low light. Rey looked lovely like this, he thought—gentle and speaking softly to Bee. 

“You should see her when the let her out on the grass,” Rey said softly. “She’s so playful, loves to roll on her back…”

Ben nodded, but he wasn’t looking at the horse. 

“What?” Rey asked him. Her voice was hushed, tentative. 

She didn’t move away. 

“You just look…” Ben fumbled for the right word; flattery had never been his strong suit, so he had to go for complete sincerity. “Happy. You look happy, here.”

“I am.” She smiled a little, and turned back to murmur an endearment to the mare. “I suppose I don’t look like much of a country girl to you.”

“You have no idea what I see when I look at you,” Ben replied, before realizing that his words could be deeply misconstrued. 

Rey glanced up at him, curiosity and wariness guarding her eyes. 

“I just mean… I think we all give off impressions that... “ his voice trailed off; Ben sighed, and raked a hand through his hair. “Never mind.”

He slid his other hand absently across the top of the stall door—then flinched, biting back a curse as a sharp pain lanced through his palm.

“What is it?”

Bringing his hand back, Ben turned towards the light for a closer inspection. “Just a scratch. It’s nothing.”

“Let me see,” Rey said. “I think there’s a first aid kit in the barn…”

_ I’d be shocked if there wasn’t,  _ Ben thought, but his words died in his throat when Rey took his hand into her own. She cradled it, her hands seeming delicate and small compared to his massive paw. 

“It looks like a deep scratch,” she said. “I’ll go look for the kit, you sit here.”

Ben obeyed. He settled down onto a nearby bale of hay, hardly feeling the cut at all. She’d touched him…

“Here we are,” she said, returning in a flash with a red, zippered bag bigger than his backpack. “Or you can go inside, you don’t have to—”

“I trust you,” he said. 

_ Just touch me again, please… _

Rey dug in the bag and extracted a bottle of something. “This might sting.”

Ben nodded, and then, his moon-eyed musings abruptly dimmed she poured a liberal amount of the alcohol on his cut. 

He cursed softly.

“Sorry,” Rey muttered. 

“It’s fine,” he said. The sting on his hand reminded him viscerally of another moment, another cut and another spill of a different kind of alcohol across it. He’d been drunk, in a club, in the daytime; a glass had broken, there had been flashbulbs and hell to pay in the morning. His bleary-eyed face, spread across every gossip rag. 

His mother had been furious. 

That had been back when she still cared enough to be angry. Not just disappointed. 

But now, here, it was quiet. 

There was only the gentle sound of the animals, the scent of the barn and the hay and the dirt. Not pleasant smells, altogether—certainly not with the added sharp scent of the rubbing alcohol—but it was so different from sticky beer and vomit and the pang of regret. 

They were alone. 

And they’d been alone before, but…

This felt different. He couldn’t explain it. 

Rey was staring up into his eyes when he came back to the moment, watching him; he realized that she was wrapping something around his hand. Some kind of gauze—he didn’t care. She was still holding his hand, still rubbing it. That was what mattered. 

The contact jolted through his senses, sharp and hot and fierce desire running through his veins. 

She had undone him, completely. And he had no clue if she meant it, or wanted it, or if he was reading this all wrong, or if she—

“I can hear your brain spinning,” Rey whispered. “Tell me. Talk to me. We’re.. Friends, aren’t we, Ben?”

Friends. That was safe. A good reminder of where things stood. 

This close, her eyes were soft green, mossy hazel. Beautiful, really. 

He gave her a soft smile. “I think that your family is getting the wrong idea about you and me.”

“And what idea is that?”

“That we’re involved?”

“And we’re not.”

“No, definitely not.”

“Because you hate me.”

“Yes, very much.” 

The moment between them hung by a single thread. 

Rey’s lashes fluttered. His whole body ached with need and urgency and something dangerous and low and feral that frightened him. This, this right here, this was worse than any pain he’s ever felt. Not from the arousal, but from the deep and gutting understanding that she’s…

She’s better than he deserves, by a wide and obvious margin. 

She’s good, and sweet, and driven, and has goals that will help people, change the world. 

And he’s nothing. A prince with a tilted crown. A little lost boy with no direction because he’s never had to have one. It’s always been the throne, and his country. He’s never felt free, and coming here, even dealing with the last tremors of the drugs he’s craved but hasn’t taken, is less painful than this moment. 

He will never have her. 

And he would never dare smudge her with his dirty hands. 

So it was Ben who pulled back first. He looked away, and had no way of seeing the expression on her face, whether it was disappointment or relief. 

“What’s wrong?” She called out after him, and he turned. 

“Nothing,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.”

The wind picked up and played with the loose bits of Rey’s hair. They were standing in the doorway of the barn, on the edge of something that feels monumental and terrifying. Something he didn't dare chase. He knew where his desires usually took him, and it’s never good. For him, for others. 

So for the first time in his life, he suppressed them.

“Which is why I am going to walk you back to your door, and say good night,” he finished. 

Rey nodded, but only after a hesitant pause. “Okay.” 

They turned away from the barn and headed back up to the house, walking side-by side. The bandage around Ben’s palm was too soft to be a hand in his, but he thought about it, what it would be like just to be allowed that much. 

He didn’t reach for her. 

They found themselves at the bottom of the stairs up to the porch. The lights were still on inside, bathing Rey in a golden glow. 

“Can I… borrow your car?” Ben asked her. 

Rey’s brows went up in surprise. “It’s Rose’s but… I don’t think she’d mind?”

Ben shoved his hands in his pockets, pushing the gauze up, hurting the injury more than it had a right to hurt. “I just need… I wanted to get some things, and we passed a town on the way…”

Rey found the keys from inside of Rose’s jacket pocket and tossed them to him. “Just don’t wreck it."

God, how that stung. He nodded, though, and said nothing. All of his skin was crawling, and he felt like screaming, like peeling off his skin and just yelling into the uncaring night. 

Rey went back up the stairs, her shoulders slumped a little by the weight of words unspoken. Ben got in the car, and turned the ignition. 

He pulled out into the night, back down the gravel road, heading for nothing, thinking of how pathetic and stupid and miserable he was. A familiar refrain. 

Nighttime was when his failures screamed the loudest. Maybe that was why he tried to never be alone with them, never be in a place so quiet where they can fill his brain and make him remember how useless and pathetic and ridiculous he is.

Damn it all. 

If this wasn’t someone else’s car, Ben would’ve slammed his fist through the window. Maybe it was a sign of personal growth that he hadn’t done so yet. Maybe it was just being in this new place that kept him from driving it right off a cliff.

Maybe it was just the lack of cliffs. 

He drove on through the night, deeper and deeper into his own self-hatred. 

Finally, he found himself back at the Tico’s farm. The porch light had been left on for him, but inside, it was all dark. Ben was so wrapped up in his own misery and longing that it took him a few long moments to realize that the reason why the lights out front looked so different was that he was crying. 

He cut the engine. 

Slowly, he got out of the car, and closed the door behind him. 

He tilted his head up to the sky, and looked at the stars. 

They were blurry, too. Hastily, he wiped his eyes. The gestured made him feel small, and filled with shame. But the stars made him feel like…

Like he was small, and not in an insignificant way. 

Like he could be born, and live, and fuck up, and ruin everything, and die, and the world, the whole galaxy would keep on turning. 

He could want her, just her, instead of wanting everything or nothing, all of his life. 

And she would go on without him, and the galaxy would keep spinning. 

Ben took one deep breath, then another, then another. Slowly, his tears dried in the cool night air. 

Once he had collected himself, he went inside the house. The front door was unlocked; he locked it behind him as he toed off his boots and hung up Rose’s car keys above her jacket. 

He went upstairs, to the guest bedroom. He, who had been born in a palace, literally slept in a gilded bassinet. He, who had spent more nights in five-star hotels and castles and manors, and this homemade quilt and mismatched, possibly lumpy futon was the most inviting thing he had ever seen. 

Well.

Second-most inviting. 

Because the light was still on, faintly, under Rey’s door. 

Ben swallowed thickly. 

Before he knew what he was doing, his hand was raised, knuckles rapping softly on the wood. The rest of the house was asleep, and he didn’t want to wake them, or invite questions. 

Rey opened the door. Her hair was up in a high, messy bun, her pajama shirt long and shapeless and covered in dancing cartoon fruit, and yet it was somehow the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, because it had _her_ underneath it. 

Her hazel eyes shone up at him, taking in the clear evidence of his crying. 

He sighed. 

“Everything okay?”

He shook his head, but said: “Yeah. I guess I just needed to clear my head.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Ben stared at her. 

Her lips looked so soft, her skin glowing and the curve of her cheek just right for his hand to cup. So he did. And she didn’t pull away from his touch, but leaned into it. Warm and soft and alive. 

It was as if her warmth spread into him. Into his cold hands, up through his arm and right to his brain. It filled him, helium in a balloon, until he couldn’t find where the wanting of her ended and the fear of her, of _this_ , began. 

It filled him, until there was no fear. 

“Ben,” she said, voice only a little louder than a rush of wind. 

His answer was a gentle press of his mouth to hers. 

Sweet mint chapstick, he thought, over the rush of pure need and want, and then complete and total disbelief that she was kissing him back, tasting him, her tongue darting out to swipe across his as he groaned softly and gave in. He was shaking like a leaf  in the hallway, making himself small so she wouldn’t feel threatened or cornered, like he’d forced her, he’d never want to force her—

“Ben.” She said his name again when they parted, reaching up with her hands to hold his face gently. 

He exhaled, and brushed his nose against her cheek. 

He didn’t know whether to thank her or to apologize. 

Rey pulled back, leaving him cold once more, bereft, touch-starved in a way he’d never acknowledged until this night, this very moment. But she was smiling shyly at him. 

He swiped his hand across his lips, coming away with a faint sheen of her chapstick. The scent of sweet mint, now, would always be a part of his impression of her in his mind. 

“Good night,” Rey said. 

The understanding was clear: Not here, not now. But… soon. This was the start of something, and it was new and different from anything else he'd experienced before. It felt delicate. 

_As soon as possible,_ Ben hoped. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his jeans and an urgency like a livewire that filled the space between them. 

“Good night,” Ben echoed. Rey’s soft, elated smile was the last thing he saw before she shut her bedroom door. 

He must have floated back to the guest room. The next thing he knew, he was laying under soft sheets, tracing the curves of the quilt piecing with his hands, seeing her smile even in the pitch-black room. 

Heart soaring almost as high as if he’d done every illicit thing running through his mind. Mind calm, as if she lay beside him, brushing his hair back from his brow, saying his name in that soft way, just for him to hear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Paige's parents, in canon, are her father Hue Tico and her mother Thanya Tico. However, Huệ is a female Vietnamese name, and so I have given it to Rose's mother in this AU, and named her father Thuần.


	8. Chapter 8

Midterms were on the horizon, and the Sheev Palpatine Memorial Library was full to the brim with anxious students, cramming for the hellish torment that was yet to come. 

But all Rey could focus on was Ben Solo’s hands. 

Across the table from them, Rose was idly reviewing her notes, her head propped up on one open palm, pen doodling with the other in the margins of her notebook. Rey had her books and her notes open in front of her as well, but… truth be told, she’d been reading the same sentence over and over and utterly unable to retain a word of it, because Ben’s hands were...

They were distracting. 

She hadn’t even known that was a kink, and yet…

Ben had set his hand next to hers where she’d placed it on the table. He’d shot her a smile that was all promises, and then hooked his pinky finger around hers. Rey felt an answering thrill of pure want zip through her; it felt like she’d just knocked back a whole bottle of champagne. 

_ “Stop,”  _ she mouthed at him, when he glanced back over at her and caught her eye. 

He just smiled, so very innocent, and stroked her pinky. 

Unacceptable. 

Practically a declaration of war. 

In retaliation, Rey took her hand out from under his and put it in her lap. It felt like… damn it, it felt like he was touching her somewhere else, somewhere much more intimate than just her hand. It felt like her skin was on fire with need. As if on the same wavelength, Ben waited only a moment, then followed her hand down. Meeting it with his. 

Slowly, he turned her hand over, and drew a slow, deliberate line down her palm. The sensation sent a jolt of aching need right through her body.

Fuck it. 

Rey set her pen down on top of her notebook with enough force to draw Rose’s attention. But without even looking over at her friend, Rey leaned closer to Ben, speaking near his ear, and for him alone. 

“Come with me.”

* * *

Kissing Ben was like falling head-first off a cliff, but in the best possible way. Rey grasped at him, clutching him close with the same intensity that his hands grabbed at her. Ever since coming back from the Tico’s she’d felt hungry for him, but classes and her work schedule had gotten in the way. Just a stolen kiss here, a brief embrace there. He’d be there, walking her back from work, doing his laundry at her place. Growing closer in class, until their heated banter had turned into something even their professor had noticed. And commented on. They were constantly getting walked in on, to the point where it was almost a joke now. Rey wanted to rush; she’d never felt like that before, not with anyone. Ben wanted to take things slow, it felt like. She’d made it more than clear that he could do whatever he liked with her. 

Maybe that was all he liked?

Rey hadn’t known what to make of it.

But nobody had watched them or even cared as they rushed upstairs. In that moment, Rey felt as if she could finally,  _ finally _ fall. 

Ben was there to catch her. 

He met her against the stacks of old county records, hardbound spines of copied newspapers pressing against her back, then his, as they kissed with frantic energy. Their tongues met and teased, tasting, mouths and hands urgent with a shared desperation. His huge hands were warm when he pushed up under her sweater, and Rey groaned and shivered and tugged him closer. This was too much, it was overwhelming, but she didn’t dare stop it. For the first time in her exquisitely well-planned life, the risk was making her heedless. 

“In here,” Rey said, pausing and pulling back from him only for the seconds her whispered direction needed. 

One of the nearby study rooms; He pushed the door open, and hoisted her up and had her on her back on one of the wide tables before the door had even shut. 

Like this, her legs spread open for him. Ben stepped closer, standing between them, looking down at her with a gaze that was half delighted, half bewildered. It seemed to reflect her own thoughts:  _ How did we end up here?  _ Followed quickly by:  _ Why did we stop kissing? _

His hands found purchase on her waist as if they had been made to hold her there. Crafted by some divine force, the perfect fit. He bent his long body over her and resumed kissing. Rey felt his tongue trace the seam of her lips, and felt the growl low in his chest when she parted for him, and let him taste. Making out with him was more than she could anticipate, more intimate than any other stolen moment in her life. Eager, hungry, impatient—it was all she could do to hold on, which she did, clinging with shaking hands to his shoulders, feeling his body move beneath the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

_ God, can he kiss… _

It was all-consuming, overwhelming; Rey could barely keep up, and she whimpered against his mouth as his hands once again contact with the skin of her belly. 

“Rey,” he groaned, his hips grinding into hers. “ _ Rey… _ ”

_ “Yes,” _ was all she could manage to reply. She’d never before heard a man say her name like that… like it was holy, a prayer, a plea. 

His hips ground into hers. Close, not close enough, for the pleasure that she needed. 

Maybe she begged; maybe he just knew. His right hand pushed at the button of her jeans and his left pushed her sweater even higher, finding her breast as she groaned beneath him. She’d never felt as if her breasts were good enough, but in his hand they were small and perfect and delicate—she felt small and delicate, worshipped as he whimpered and pulled back to look. Apprehension and hope played across his expressive features when he straightened up a bit. It should’ve been comical, arranged as they were, panting on a (thankfully solid) desk, their chests heaving. His hand was still on her breast, covering over the soft fabric of her bralette. It was only soft gray jersey, no lace, no frills, but under his touch it felt like the finest lingerie.  

Decisively, Rey tugged the sweater up and over her head, displacing the clip holding her hair back from her face as one of the tines caught in the cable-knit fabric. The bralette went as well.

“Holy shit,” Ben exhaled. “You’re fucking perfect.”

“Shut up,” Rey growled. “Kiss me again.”

Ben grinned, and obeyed. He put his hands back on her bare waist, moving them up to caress the sensitive skin underneath her breasts with his thumbs, rolling her nipples between thumb and forefinger, until their kisses grew too heated and his touch began to shake. Rey was shaking too, writhing beneath him; the table was cold on her back, and he was hot against her front and between her legs, and at some point she had grabbed the wrist of his right hand and shoved it to the waistband of her jeans. 

The boy could take a hint. 

And he could undo a button fly one-handed, which, really, all of these things were definitely useful life skills, 12/10 would make out in a study room again. 

“Rey…” His voice was low and rough and more than a little desperate, and his hand, massive and barely fitting between her snug jeans and her heated, slick flesh. His fingers felt huge, and were it not for the denim casing her in she would’ve split for him like fingers into fruit, but as it was, the intensity of it matched the heedless and utterly artless stroking, the pure need that made the idea of pausing, even to take her pants off, utterly inconceivable. 

Rey babbled something back to him, something encouraging and… words were hard. Ben was hard, too; she could feel the straining length of him when he’d been grinding needily against her just moments before. First she needed to come, and then they could… They could do more, here or anywhere, they could go to her place and…

Rey came so hard her ears popped. 

With her eyes screwed shut, and with Ben’s hand down her pants, she climaxed, clinging to him as she cried out. 

The sound very nearly drowned out the slamming of the door, but not quite. 

And when she came down… the sound of clicking camera made her eyes open wide in shock. 

Ben had already moved in front of her, shielding her with his body. But he was looking back at them, at a whole pack of photographers who had suddenly burst through the door. 

“Ben?” She managed to ask him, her voice weak and shaking, disbelief fighting with pleasure to render her both utterly boneless and completely tense in the same moment. “What’s—”

“Prince Benjamin!” one of them called. And another: “Prince Benjamin! Is this your—”

“Get the fuck out of here!” Ben yelled. 

And she flinched away from him, turning her terrified gaze to his face, seeing it contort into a snarl of pure unadulterated rage. 

“Delete those fucking pictures!” 

“Ben…”

When he stepped away, Rey fell forward, and caught herself, legs trembling, on the ground. Five or so photographers—oh god, there were  _ photographers _ , she was standing in a study room  _ shirtless  _ and they were taking  _ pictures _ —were grappling around each other, flashes going off. The whole scene had a surreal quality to it, time slowing down, speeding up, stretching strangely around her as she fumbled to button her jeans. Why her jeans were the priority and not her sweater in that moment she couldn’t say. All she could do was watch with horror as Ben, who had been guarding her as best he could from their lenses, suddenly lunged forward, grabbing one of them by the camera and yanking him forward, the strap still around the photographer’s neck. 

Glass and plastic and metal crunched on the ground; Ben raised his foot and brought it down on top of the camera, reaching out with his free hand to grab another, and another. Rey turned away, gasping for breath as if she’d just been pulled out of an icy lake. 

There were no more clicks, no more flashes. Just the sound of Ben beating the shit out of a group of photographers. Fists connecting with flesh. The dull thud of knuckles and a scream and a snap that sounded like bone, or camera, or she didn’t know which. The wall shook as he threw someone into it. She reached down, in a daze, and found her sweater on the floor. 

Her hands were shaking. 

She pulled the sweater on. 

When she turned back, Ben had pushed the last of the photographers out into the stacks. The shelf of hardbound volumes had lost a few, and the pages now were torn out and crumpled as he grappled with the last man. 

Four others lay on the ground. One was still trying to get up, a tweedy younger man, with a massive shiner growing under his right eye. His camera was still whole his hands. 

Rey screamed, and kicked him, too, and the man went down. The camera fell from his grip and she brought her own foot down on it, again and again and again, until it was several thousand dollars worth of shrapnel on the low-pile library carpet. And then she cried out, and raised her hands to cover her mouth, feeling that her face was suddenly wet. 

She was crying. 

The last photographer went down, hard, and groaned wetly, as if through a mouthful of blood and broken teeth. 

Ben was panting as he stood, his hair mussed and wild; he looked feral, ferocious. Part of her thrilled at the fact that he had done that for her, he had defended her, fought for her, destroyed so much just for her. 

The men had taken pictures of her topless. 

They had taken pictures of…  _ both _ of them. But why?

Rey saw the moment when the bloodlust dissolved into tenderness, there in Ben’s dark eyes. A breath later, the color drained from his face, and he straightened up, realizing what he had done, what had just happened. 

Before he could say a word, Rey turned, and fled. 

* * *

The downpour hit her as soon as she bolted out of the library’s front doors. She ran down the steps, and out into the walkway, heading for her apartment, running with panic in her veins. The rain plastered her hair down to her head, and dimly she realized she’d left her books and coat and everything else behind with Rose. But she didn’t care. 

She just kept going. 

From behind, she heard him call out to her. Ben had caught up with her. She knew he would, and yet even when she heard him call out her name again, she still kept going. Half-running, half-walking. Half awake. 

What the hell had happened?

“Rey,” he called out again, “Stop, wait…”

He was close enough behind her, from the sound of it, that she had to stop and turn. 

Ben’s black hair was slicked down to his head, one of his large ears sticking out from it. There was blood on his hands, blood on his bruised knuckles, and the rain was making it smear and run. He clenched his fists, then relaxed them.

“I’m sorry—”

“What the hell was that?” Rey asked, breathless with anger and unspent emotion. “Why were they calling you Prince Benjamin?”

The two of them had stopped up under an awning; students were coming in and out, heading to class, barely giving the pair of them any notice. She was drenched, out of the rain, but she still felt like she was drowning. “Because that’s my name.”

“What?”

“I’m… a prince. From Alderaan, it’s—”

“I know where Alderaan is,” Rey said. “Are there a lot of princes in Alderaan?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m it.”

“Oh.”

On either side of the canopy, rain poured down. Rey felt, suddenly, as if they were the only two humans alive in the universe. And yet behind it all was the fear, the idea that another group of photographers could come around the corner and find them again. 

She closed her eyes, swallowing back the bile rising in her throat. The photos they had taken—but he’d broken all their cameras… and he’d hurt them, and she’d… she’d hurt one of them, too. 

She’d enjoyed it. It had felt righteous, the anger, the violence. 

“You lied to me.”

“What?”

Rey opened her eyes. Ben looked stricken, his face so close to hers, and yet so much taller. “You lied to me.

“Rey, I love you.” His voice broke as he spoke the words. His hand reached for hers, and she pulled it out of reach. 

“Why should I believe that?”

“Because it’s… the truth,” he said. “Rey, I didn’t… I didn’t want you to learn like this, or—fuck, they—their photos are destroyed, they didn’t—”

“Was this all some kind of joke to you?”

“Never,” he said, fervently. “Never, this meant something to me,  _ you  _ mean something—so much to me—”

“I can’t believe this,” Rey said. She was shaking her head, wet strands of hair whipping back and forth as she curled her arms around her chest protectively. “I don’t want this. I just wanted… I wanted—Ben, just go.”

He’d been reaching for her. But at that declaration, his hands stilled in midair. His eyes were deep and black and full of pain, but he said nothing. He just nodded, once, and put his hands by his side. 

They once again curled into fists. 

Rey turned away. Her heart broke as she put one foot in front of the other, the words welling up in her throat, everything she couldn’t say. Shame, mortification, the terror of having been caught and photographed in such a vulnerable positon was bad enough, but the fact that the man she’d almost allowed herself to love had hidden the truth from her was worse, in that moment. She took another step, and another. Her longing was like a tether, pulling her back to him. And when she chanced a look backwards, she could see him still standing there, tall and still and solemn. Blood on his knuckles. A look of pain in his eyes. 

So she looked ahead instead, and kept going. 

Now wasn’t the time, she rationalized. Never fight while angry. She needed to go home, to calm down, to find her center. Then she’d be able to say what she wanted to say. 

* * *

Ben stood in the rain and watched her go. Something cramped, hard and painfully, in his gut. Of all the ways to get rid of an erection this one certainly was the most efficient and the worst. Fucking hell, why had he thought he could find something different here? Why had he even tried? Everything he had done had always caught up with him, would always catch up with him, even here. 

And Rey had paid the price. 

Her slim figure slipped away as he followed her go. One minute she was there on the sidewalk and the next, a group of chatting students had passed in front of him, trying to get into the building. When they were gone, Rey was nowhere to be seen. 

But he knew where she lived. He could go to her, explain to her, make everything right…

That wasn’t what she wanted. Hadn’t she made that abundantly clear?

He wasn’t what she wanted.

Maybe Rey had wanted Ben the college student, but she didn’t want Prince Benjamin of Alderaan. She deserved far better than him, and he’d known it from the start. 

His cell phone buzzed in his back pocket. He ignored it, still straining to see Rey. Useless. 

The rain was coming down in buckets now. Thunder rolled overhead. He ducked back under the awning, and pulled his phone out of his pocket with wet hands. 

The contact made him blanch. 

He took the call, and put it to his ear. 

“Dad.”

“We need you to come home, Benny,” his father’s weary voice echoed across continents to reach him. “It’s your mother.”


End file.
